That Dixon-girl
by MaryJames11
Summary: Emma, Tulula, Louise or (preferably) Lu Dixon is, like always, just a teenager with a gun and a horse trying to find her way after being seperated from her 'brothers' and the rest of Rick's group after the Greene's farm. As her journey progresses she also looks back on life through memories; The simplier times, the ugly times and the ones that down right sucked.
1. The Ground

Lu was sitting in the middle of her world geography class going through the motions of the early morning school day. She had stumbled in the doorway not a second after the first bell wearing whatever clean clothes she had for that day. Her usual attire; Old unknown band's t-shirt, guy's hand-me-down pants and brown boots because she thought she was such a cowboy when really she was just like the rest of her family; Redneck trash.

Her young twenty-ish teacher was going through morning announcements and proceeded onto current events, her favorite part of the day. She and her brother didn't have more then four channels of TV at their house, or internet, or even cellular phones. They had to go to their brother Merle's house to watch Monday night football where he's set for life in his man-cave.

It was the usual weird stories of an illness spreading like the swine flu in more public areas, it just got a little bigger every time it was brought to the class's attention. Lu had no worries though, she was from the place where people from 'The Sticks' called 'The Boonies'. You couldn't get down their gravel road without four wheel drive after a nice summer shower in June. That was most kid's around there though.

After a mind-numbing, complete, whole 8 hours of school was done she would usually sit around the building and do homework, maybe just start walking home or chill in someone's car with them until Daryl could pick her up. His arrival time varied between 3:10 and 5:55 due to his off work schedule. If Lu wasn't at the school when he'd come, or late when he's early, he'd bark at her for the first few miles home.

She wouldn't take it so easily though. They'd holler back and forth, call names and remind each other of their faults. Once they were home it was a different world though. They still cussed at each other and were constantly stepping on one another's heels, but it was done in an orderly family matter. This was their strange relationship they developed after Emma Lu had decided to live with her biological 'Uncle Daryl' that past year or so after she realized living with her father, Merle, wasn't a very good plan.

That day Daryl wasn't going to pick Lu up from school until at least five. She could tell this by how the morning started; Daryl dragging his niece out of bed and throwing her in the truck to get to both school and work on time. He'd have to stay later at the plant to make up for Lu and her tendency to forget that Saturday mornings come after Friday nights, not the late night hours of Wednesday.

A classmate friend, a boy named Marcus, came fumbling out of the backdoor of the school carrying his football equipment nearly tripping over Lu on the curb.

"Isn't it a little late for football?" She called after him trying to hide the roll she just lit up behind her back.

He turned to look at her as he made his way to his white, dirt covered car. "No ma'am it's fairly early. Spring tryouts, you know?" He grinned and threw his stuff in the back seat. "Isn't it a little risky to be smoking on school grounds?"

She looked at what was in her hand then threw it back in her mouth. "It's Newport, hardly called a smoke."

He took it out of her mouth and leant a hand to his old friend. "Come on, I'll drive you home if you promise not to burn into the interior."

"Daryl's going to flip if I'm not here." She reminded him though she proceeded to follow him to his car.

"I'll flip out if you get expelled from school. You're the only reason I come to school for study hall in the mornings anyway, just to see what crazy thing you're going to catch someone doing and take a picture of it."

"Yeah," She sneered and dug in her bag for her cheap camera she always carried around and flipped through the random pictures of people that she took that day. "You need to see this one I got of Harper, in eleventh grade, looking like she's making lovely eyes at that young kid who skipped a grade."

Marcus laughed at the picture. "You should be in yearbook, Lu."

"No."

"Why?" He mimicked her in a high pitched voice and pulled out of his parking space.

"Because it involves socializing with people that aren't… that aren't like you, really. I mean, I've known you for like, five years and hadn't gotten to know you really up until this winter. You took a chance to talk to the strange girl because you're open! Now you're like, the closest thing I have to a friend and you just can't get rid of me now."

"If I wanted to get rid of you I would have already, and you shouldn't knock the rest of our high school so soon. I'm being your friend openly, soon enough you're going to be coming to parties, invited out with people, maybe get asked out if."

"So their going to like me because I'm with you?"

"No!" He ran his hand through his hair and thought for a moment.

"Marcus, you gotta tell me straight up, do you like me just for the ball of awkwardness that I am, or is this going to end up like a bad 90's teen movie?"

"What, are you afraid that I'm taking you in as my pet, making you popular so I can feel better about myself?"

"And making me the Prom Queen so you can win a bet with your friends…"

"I think those are two different movies."

"I think you're avoiding the question!" She rolled up her window as he turned on her gravel road.

"No. I'm friends with you because you do your own thing. Someone tells you to join yearbook and you just reply with 'hell no' and walk away. I think you're friends with me because I'm almost a better tracker then you," she gaffed. "I just thought 'hey, I should introduce my new friend to my old friends so we can all be friends together and I won't have to go crazy trying to make time with my two best friends.'"

"Sorry." She shrugged. "I've just never been the outgoing type when it comes to the people I know. Total strangers I can tolerate, even if I'll never see them again, or I'll have them in my every day life forever after our meeting. Totally opposite when it comes to my brothers. Those two stick pretty close."

"Yeah." He sighed and looked over at his friend clutching her bag with her camera on top. The pictures that she saves on there in hopes of one day printing them off are mostly of strangers.

Lu has this thing with remembering faces and keeping sentimental things like that when it comes to photographs. When she was little she never had pictures taken of her. The only one she has is of her and her mom laying down on her grandmother's kitchen floor. Her mother was three sheets to the wind, just got home from a cocktail party or something with the girls, and Lu was just three years old waiting up for her. That pretty much sums up the first part of her life.

She keeps these random faces, sometimes in a box or a book, and writes their names on the back of them if she can remember. It would make her day knowing someone had her picture in their possession just laying around. She'd have that knowledge the someone thinks of her whenever they see it, or just acknowledges her existence.

Marcus opened his tiny, tender heart up just a little bit to find enough courage to ask, "How is it going at home?"

"It's fine." She snapped and immediately shut him down completely.

Lu stumbled out of the car and shuffled to her doublewide trailer house. Marcus would usually wait until she got in the front door just to make sure he wasn't deserting her completely if she was locked out. However, just as she got to the bottom of the porch steps Daryl flew out of the house and started barking at her about staying at school.

"Merle was gonna get you right at three…"

"The final bell doesn't ring until 3:10, stupid!" She cut him off. "And why was Merle going to get me today? I have two legs, I can walk home myself!"

"Or get rides from strange boys. I don't like that kid all around."

"You don't like anybody." She brushed past him into the house.

"My brother made an appointment for you," he started, a bit ashamed as he reminded her of a doctor's appointment Merle had made for her a week or two ago. She supposedly had a problem with depression and needed immediate care, just a quick fix, something along the lines of pills one could take once or twice a day…

This was their deal. Because Lu was young dealing with stuff way beyond her maturity level doctors were most likely to help her by giving her happy drugs that would make her concentrate, feel energetic or all around better. If she went in once in a while with a problem and came out with a prescription, she'd be able to keep living with Daryl and away from Merle.

Merle was a decent father as long as he stayed away from Lu for long periods of time. She always had a fight in her no matter what the hour or day was. It was just natural waking up in the morning ready to defend yourself in anyway. All of them would argue about anything under the sun but it was Daryl who wouldn't turn it into a physical fight.

To make a short story really short the three of them decided that Lu living with her uncle for the most part was the best plan. She still had a spot for herself at her father's house though, in the spare room between the gun cabinet and the washer and dryer.

This all was decided at a very young age. Around the same time when six year old Emma Louise outgrew her 'baby-name' and preferred to be called 'Lu' after a nickname her mother used to call her: Emmy-Lu. That also was around the same time she decided she was going to call Merle and Daryl her brothers rather then father and uncle.

It was all very complicated but to a misunderstood six year old girl it was all very simple. She saw these two men in their upper twenties not as her overseers or caretakers or just older members of her family that _needed _to take care of her. They were, at the time, just two bachelors who didn't even know how to take care of themselves. Granted now days they both are still somewhat the same as they were before, but they were more the people that _had _to take care of her in order to prevent her from getting lost in the system. They were simple, immature, semi-responsible older brothers to this six year old girl and have remained that way ever since for almost ten years.

Daryl and Lu were usually at each other's throats about something. They'd claim that they hated each other, but at the end of the day they realize that they are the closest ally they have. For instance, that day months ago, Lu was supposed to go to a dreaded appointment to lie about fake problems. Daryl never agreed with this and would prefer his 'little sister' not to be yanked around. Not doing that though would be stepping out of Merle's order. No one wants to step out of that mans order if they could never pay the consequences.

Those days seemed so intense. The days of high school drama, family matters and keeping people at arms length. Trying to lie with a straight face took no effort at all and all Lu couldn't wait until her eighteenth birthday. She was planning to quit school with enough credits to graduate that spring and join the military. Everything she was dealing with, all the things that come with being a teenager, are just old memories of someone else's dopey life.

They were her days gone bye.

Lu packed up her brown native-printed blanket she adopted as her own weeks before and threw it in a green duffle bag on top of a few hundred shells for her double-barrel gun. These three simple survival tools were the only things that she called her own now other then what she carried on her body and winter was drawing near. It was another day of shuffling just to make it towards the next. It was another day closer of reaching civilization, another person or maybe even one of the others.


	2. Pulling Up Stakes

Lu wakes curled up in her brown blanket. It seems funny that she once thought it to be too scratchy and ugly and was going to use it for Sprout's saddle; Now it's like, her best friend. It's literally a safety blanket for the teenager. When she's warpped up in it she's not necessarily safe, because no where is safe anymore, but she's protected from the worst case sinereo. The blanket and her horse is called home in the world without anywhere to bunker down for a moment.

It seems funny, that expression. It usually means to reside somewhere for a while or a longer stretch of time. Like when she was six years old moving into Merle's house, the social worker told her it's going to be hard to 'pull up stakes and move' from her grandmother's home in a town of a couple thousand to a trailer house in the sticks. She had her feet firmly planted in that house even though she'd only been there a short six years and yet it was so easy to pick her up and move her across the country as if one only had to pull stakes out of the ground to take down a tent.

Who knew that one day it was going to come to that; Taking down a tent just to put it up the next night again and calling it home.

Though it wasn't always like that. When Lu and her brother's fled from their homes it was just them and the open road. There were barns to hide out in, stars to sleep under and plenty of places to rid of walkers. There were no other people to take care of, carry your own weight, and difinetly no stakes to pulls up. No time to put them down anyways.

It wasn't until Lu tagged along with Merle on a little hunting trip that led them to what was Shane's group. Now she hated hunting when it involved sitting and waiting rather then tracking and creeping about the woods. She just couldn't sit still, especially next to either of her brothers since any time spent together ends up in an argument or someone leaves the other really pissed off. Lu usually went with Daryl to hunt or else went on her own, never with Merle alone. This time was different though.

Daryl was fixing on his truck that day, just a stone throw from the main highway that led into Atlanta, and Lu was getting on his nerves. She tried learning about the engine in case it was her alone trying to rig a vehical of her own but kept getting in the way. She's always in the way. So instead of doing nothing in the middle of nowhere he sent her to find Merle who departed for his little hunting expedition earlier that morning. "Go get lost in the woods and be back before tomorra-" He said. That was a new one since usually he'd say "Go play on the road and count the tailpipes," or "Stay in your room and count the dead flies you got in there," when she was in trouble.

She shot a walker with her black recurve bow, her weapon of choice to hunt with, right before she found Merle. He was carrying a simple 22 under his arm and a couple pockets full of shells. Stupid. After having countless run ins with wanderers Lu collected that they're not all that stupid and mindless. They're attracted to sound and seem to move around best at night when it's cold. They may be infected but they're still in a human body that doesn't react well to hot weather. Lu's been trying to urge them to save their bullets for when they're in a pickle and use arrows to hunt. Daryl's seeming to listen to her, though, and picks up his crossbow rather then guns when there's one wanderer straying onto their path. He won't admit that she's right though.

She wandered from where Merle was posting, thought she was no farther from him to where she can just holler, but suddenly just lost her footing. She ended up tumbling down a steep hill covered in dirt and bushes, yelping and grunting the whole way down until she finally hit the ground. Luckily there were no wanderers around to hear her cries of pain, or no humans for that matter either. Instead of hollering for either of her brothers she just laid there out of sorts and out of mind. "Maybe this is it," she'd think, "I'm experiencing death. I couldn't have survived that fall and now I'm just waiting for my heart to stop… What a way to die."

Lu was just experiencing a blackout, maybe a concussion from her fall. No time seemed to have passed but she felt like she'd been sleeping for days but could still sleep for a couple more hours. Merle heard her screetching and thought she was being attacked by wanderer. To his disappointment she had only fallen off a small cliff and was laying there in the tall grass like a dead deer carcass waiting to be gnawed on.

"Ged-up girl." He barked at her. She tried getting up but her muscles wouldn't work to their full potential. She managed to sit up but when she tried to get up on her knees she tipped over and felt like going back to sleep again.

Merle somehow made it down the hill and to Lu's side. He tried setting her up on her feet but she gasped in pain and gripped her lower right leg and lifted her foot off the ground. She shut her eyes and tried not to fall on the ground again but sleep went together so well with this kind of pain. Merle patted her face to keep her awake and threw her body in his arms. "Don't got dieing on me now, it's just a scratch." He told her useless body that was covered in flesh wounds and blossoming bruises.

Merle brought her back to where Daryl had built a fire and was still working on his truck. "What the hell happened?"

"She took a tumble." Merle grunted and unhooked the tailgate with one hand and laid his daughter in the box. "She's heavy."

Daryl kept Lu awake by peppering her with questions. Basic knowledge questions about herself, nothing about the world going to hell, and kept asking her them repeatedly until she could recite her answers to him backwards. "I like to take people's photographs. Yes, I like pepper on everything I eat. My best friend was named Marcus. I had a dog named Jake. I have two brothers named Merle and Daryl. I live in Georgia. I'm from Minnesota. My name is Emma Louise Dixon."

It turned out that she had sprained her left ankle really bad or cracked the bone as she fell, not to mention might have suffered a concussion and some memory loss. The next morning she couldn't stand o her right foot, put on her boot or even elevate it too much. When she sat in the cab of the truck upright it even hurt. When it was time to pack up and leave Merle gave her some pain killers. Those two hours were spent driving with Daryl, Lu naming off all the good things that came out of the appocalypse.

She remembers none of it.

After her condition worsened the brother's decided to put aside their attitude towards people. They tended to either drag down their trio or hurt the group in some way. The Dixon brother's weren't all for company in the first place, but now that their littlest member was in constant pain it was time to seek some sort of medial help.

That's what led them to Shane's group of a little more then a dozen people 40 minutes outside of Atlanta. A sweet lady named Carol wrapped the girl's ankle up and a guy that called himself T-Dog gave her a walking stick she soon made into an actual crutch for herself. Merle and Daryl became part of the defense against walkers and providers since they were the most experienced hunters.

An older man named Dale, not even knowing the girl's name after a day at the camp, saw that she was anxious to get back on her feet and do something. He examined her 'brothers' rough attitude towards everyone and figured why she was in a hurry to heal; To do something and be useful. In better words, earn her keep. He told her to take his spot for a while on top of the RV during the evening, maybe the night shift if she would like. Just like that he gave her a gun and a job and there she was elevating her ankle every evening after supper. Healing, helping and protecting the people that she soon called her second family.

She sat up there on her post and watched as Merle and a few others depart for Atlanta, wanting to go with them more then anything, and sat there waiting for them to come back. When they did come back, as everyone knows, Merle did not return with them. Instead it was the sheriff, Lori's husband and Carl's father. Though nobody really missed Merle there was still Daryl to answer to.

Lu usually slept during the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and woke up for supper and her shift. Everyone's early mornings were her afternoons, it was sort of fun being the first one up, having the responsibility of waking everyone up with the rising sun. She was sleeping though when Rick came with the rest of the group and no where to be found when he had to tell Daryl of Merle's situation.

"Lu hears nothing of this. She's not going to know nothing until we get back." Daryl tells Rick as they ready themselves for another rescue mission into Atlanta. "I know her. I know what she'll do if she knows both of us are out there. I know what she'll do if both of us… If neither of us come… Listen, whatever happens she stays with this group. Don't let her go trailing off by herself, don't let her leave or so much as be the hero. She stays here and plays it safe."

These past few days were the most compassion the Dixon brothers have publicly shown at all in their lives, especially towards the Dixon sister. This was uncommon and totally foreign to Lu but she knows her family, it's just for general survival, and family means everything… Supposedly.

She didn't hear of anything during her heavy, well deserved slumber in the cab of Daryl's truck. She found that she heard less things around the camp and slept better curled up on the bench seat with her right ankle elevated on the dash. It was when she woke up right before sunset when she sensed something was wrong. No one talked with her, talked around her or heaven forbid to her. She was used to being standoffish but this was ridiculous.

After Amy accidentally announced to everyone that she had to go to the bathroom, Dale climbed down from the RV to get himself another bite of fish and sat by Lu. No big deal, she was going up for her shift shortly anyways, and took this opportunity to ask for an explanation for all the silence. He told her that Daryl went into the city with a man named Rick, Lori's lost husband, to get the others. That was it. It still didn't sit well with her. She started demanding answers and was prepared limp across the camp where Daryl's truck sat and go into the city herself. She would have too if it hadn't been for Amy's cries of terror as wanderers literally came out of the woodwork into their campsite.

Lu took the loss of not only her brother but her actual father alone for the most part. Early the next morning Daryl found Lu on top of the RV in a lawn chair and sat next to her on the tin roof. They were all in shock of what happened to Amy and their other friends but she was mostly thinking about Merle and why he didn't come back. She hadn't heard the absolute truth yet, just parts and even those parts were total lies.

Daryl briefly told Lu what had happened. He had more time to get over his shock and establish hope that Merle was still out there. He explained what he saw to his little sister and tried to convince her to think the way he did. There were no words of "I'm sorry," or "He was a good man," or "We're going to be fine." No consolidating. She just heard denial come from his mouth. She took it all in silence.

And silence is what she did from then on until they reached the CDC.

Daryl put her arm around his neck whenever she needed to get from point A to point B. He didn't say it, the one thing she needed him to say when he was talking about Merle going missing back at the camp, but he showed it all the time after that. "I'm going to take care of you now." Just like he had been doing for the past ten years.

Dr. Jenner was able to wrap Lu's ankle up, give her proper antibiotics and a real pair of crutches. Not that she really needed them. She had been taking good care of it beforehand so she should heal in no time. She was already walking on it a bit and the swelling was visibly going down the morning before they had to split from the center.

It's funny what things can lead you astray. They can either help you or harm you just like the people you let into your life. It's almost as funny as what can lead you to that certain place such as a tumble off a small cliff or an unfortunate event on a rooftop.

It's almost as funny as the saying "pulling up stakes."


	3. Kallenberg

part 3

Lu Dixon sticks to gravel roads and dirt trails surrounded by open fields, pastures and grasslands. There's a beautiful breeze coming from the south and she can see everything happening within a five mile radius from where she is.

If only five miles gave her enough time.

After she'd been riding for a few hours she heard a quick trotting sound from behind her. To her surprise it was another being, large like a man, riding a black horse like a professional jockey. She couldn't believe her eyes at first then had Sprout start high tailing it for an open field of grass.

There should only be two reasons the figure on the black horse was hot on her tail was either there was a personal emergency and he'd pay no mind to Lu as she tried to loose him, or he was hunting her down for whatever reason. She wanted no part in either of them. She didn't want to know if he was a friend or foe or just a fellow who wanted to race. She snapped Sprout's reins again as they approached a fenced in field.

Lu glanced back at the black horse; Still a little ways behind her but still not giving up. It was a good old fashioned horse race now. The thing was that as Lu watched these in the movies she never remembered how most of them would end. The guy in front would usually get shot and fall off his horse, look at his hunter right in the eye, say something whitty then shoot the man while he laid on the ground recovering from his fall.

If one could be so lucky.

Lu braced herself for Sprout's leap over the shallow fence but instead found herself airborne for a moment, then laying pleasantly confused and out of sorts on the ground on the other side of the fence. As the man approached Sprout his face and shape became clearer. He was a man that looked a lot like Daryl except he had darker hair that stood almost straight up in the front top part of his head and had a black and blue tattoo running up the side of his neck. Plus, he was a lot less uglier then Daryl.

She drew her six-shooter she kept in the back of her pants but didn't fire. He didn't even acknowledge her existence as he dismounted and went over to her horse. He patted the side of her neck and talked to her soothingly as he tied her saddle to his.

"Hey!" Lu shouted and cocked her gun.

The man suddenly pulled out his own and pointed it at her too. "What?"

She staggered back on the ground.

"You think because I run you down, tire out my own old horse and stray so far from home, is because I want to kill you? All ya'lls is the same. Sidewinders, ready to shoot on a moment's notice, dead or not." He shoved his gun back in his pocket and leaped over the fence. As he walked closer to Lu the move she struggled to get away. "The reality for you is that you would've done it by now if you knew you had to. But you don't." He held out a hand. "I'm on your team. Take it or I'm leaving your sorry ass here, wouldn't want your kind anyway."

She glanced at his dirt-covered hand then back at his face.

"I'm taking your horse either way."

That last statement didn't seal the deal, but she took his hand anyway. She didn't trust him but trusted herself to handle whatever was going to be thrown at her in the next hour. She was no longer a youngster relying on her older brothers but a fearless cowboy ready for a fight at any moment.

He let her ride her own horse but never let her get within spitting distance from him thanks to the rope that tied their horses together. After seeing one empty field after another in silence she found herself glancing at him once in a while. Lord knows he was doing the same.

She noticed on his bare left shoulder, above a tattoo of what looked like a Scorpio horoscope sign, was a name in calligraphy that read 'Sophia'.

"Whose Sohpia?" She asked.

He glanced down at his shoulder like it was a new feature he forgot about, then shrugged. "Don't know. Got it when I was drunk in my younger days probably… Why? Does your name happen to be Sophia?"

She shook her head. "No. I just knew a girl named Sophia once."

"Oh yeah." He generically sidestepped her.

She looked away from him and gazed out into the setting sun. "We lost her."

The day Sophia was separated from everyone else was most heart wrenching of Lu's journey. That morning she rode with Daryl on the back of Merle's bike until they got to the mess of cars on the highway. While Lu departed in her own separate way to look for supplies she was followed by two pair of small feet, both of them giggling as they stalked her like two cats would with a mouse.

"Carl, stay either in my sight or Lu's." Lori hollered.

"You too Sophia. Stick with Lu."

Just like that Lu had another responsibility. Carl got discouraged by his mother and trailed off from Lu as Sophia sprung out from under a vehical and latched onto her fearless leader and smiled. "I think you're lucky that you got to ride with Daryl on his motorcycle here."

"It's not his motorcyle is our brother's. Plus it was sort of windy." She stopped to open a car door that didn't have anyone inside but was pretty banged up. Inside was a couple old lady bags in the passenger seat Lu started digging through in case she could find anything.

"Lu do you think Daryl's cute?" Sophia inquired.

Lu smirked to herself. She knew all to well what this young girl was getting at. Daryl might've been semi-nice looking to some young women, though Lu reminded him that he was surely ugly just like he did with her, but the bad boy attitude and muscular body was enough to top it off to become a sure heart-throb to all girls ages 12-15.

"I think Carl's cute." She mentioned after she glanced over at Carl. He was keeping an eye on the girls but still pretending that he was looking for stuff like everyone else was. Lu's noticed that even though Carl is still just a young kid he still has some feelings about Sophia that only two close friends like them can share. It's nothing like love but a potential solid relationship in the making. What that relationship might end up as is undecidable at the moment.

"He's okay." Sophia shrugged then joined in Lu's search. She took a smaller bag out from under the pile and ended up dropping everything on the pavement. A look of horror flickered across her face as she looked up at Lu. She just shrugged, grabbed a bag of her own, glanced inside of it then dumped it out on the ground too. Sophia laughed then picked up a small glass bottle of pink shimmery goo. "What's this?"

"Nail polish!" Lu reached for it. "I used to wear this all the time. Mine was black though. Maybe I'll get a chance to do your too if you have the time." Lu dumped out another bag onto the driver's seat full of bigger things like an eyeglass case, makeup bag, bag of medication, jewelry box and everything but the kitchen sink. The last thing she came across was a black box-looking thing with a red button on the side. She pushed it in and out popped a Polaroid camera lense and flash.

"Hey Sophia!" She held it up to her face and took a snapshot of Sophia saying "What's that?" Though the opened car window.

"It's a Polaroid camera." She took the picture the camera spit out and shook it like they did on TV. She showed her the picture of herself once it came in clear. "See? Here, take it. Show it to your mom."

Sophia took the picture in her hand and laughed at herself. She threw it up in the air and waved it wildly. "Carl! Come over here and see what Lu found!"

Sophia tore around the car with the picture in her hand, still studying it like she never saw a photograph of herself before. Carl made his way to where the girls were and looked at Sophia's picture. "Cool."

"Okay, you two stand together." Lu ushered them closer and took a quick photo of the kids leaning in together with nervous smiles.

Sophia snatched the picture out from the camera's mouth and anticipated it's revelation with Carl. When the photo of the two of them developed she dropped her other one accidently in excitement. Lu just picked that one up and stuck it in her pocket. She'll remember to give it to Carol later.

Carl took the one of her and Sophia to show to Lori but they didn't make it more then ten steps when Rick told everyone to get under the cars.

The rest was history.

The man wandered around an assortment of fences and gates that surrounded the main entrance to a place that looked like an actual town. There was a gravel road that led straight through the middle of it that stopped at a school house-looking building and then divided into a 'T'. It was the most beautiful thing Lu had seen at first glance. Modernly colored trailer houses aligned next to one another on both sides of the street, each with a big front yard. Solid buildings stood close by each other on the street with the schoolhouse. Beautiful but also pleasantly strange. It looked like Stepford, without the people.

Maybe she had died earlier when Sprout made her jump over the fence. She could have easily landed on her head, broke her neck and died. This quite handsome looking man could be an angle bringing her to heaven, or hell, whichever she had coming.

Maybe the town was her heaven. The safe haven she dreamt of where she can start over in a better life. Though Merle is probably dead he wouldn't be in her world, neither her deceased cruel grandmother and her mother who abandoned her who is also probably dead too. Sohpia would be in this town tough, along with Jim and Amy. If it was a legit thing where even those who aren't dead are here, the rest of her group would be hiding out in the town including Daryl.

This could also be Hell. Lu's lived in the end of the world for four months, most of that time she's been alone, and knows the devil always has more tricks up his sleeve. This could just be another teaser of his. That's why there was no people, because her miserable punishment was being alone for all eternity.

Lu looked over to her guide and saw that he kept his head down occasionally glancing left and right out from under his cowboy hat. "People must have seen us coming a few miles away and went to their houses to hide."

"What do you mean? Isnt this your town?"

He shushed her. "Keep your voice down" He snapped. "It's my town but I'm not exactly the one whose running it."

"You mean you're not their leader? I would have never guessed." She said sarcastically.

"Na. I turned the offer down. Couldn't get lost and go fishing anytime I wanted to."

"Where do you fish around here?" Lu thought about her stomach.

"Well if I told you where I get lost it wouldn't be much fun anymore would it?" He tugged on the rope binded them together to pull Sprout closer to his horse.

"What's his name?"

He took a moment to think then gaffed. "You're asking my horse's name before my own?"

"I thought your horse would be more receptive." She raised her brow. "Plus you don't know mine."

"I don't know your horse's either." He smirked.

"It's Sprout. The horses, not mine."

"Nancy." He gestured to the black beauty who responded to her name with a quick glance at her rider. "She belonged to a buddy of mine who lived a couple miles from me. After Z-Day I found her wandering around on the side of the road with her saddle on, no rider. She's taken me through half of South Carolina the whole state of Georgia."

"Is that where you're from, South Carolina?"

He nodded. "Yes ma'am. And youself?"

"The northern mountains of Georgia. I lived on the outskirts of a small town with my brother." She admitted. That was the first time she'd ever spoken about her family in about three months. Today was the most she's ever talked in three months anyway. It felt nice, but totally out of her comfort zone.

The man haulted abruptly as they reached the T in the middle of the road and turned left. Down the right side of that road was a drug store and a brick building with the name "Dr. Steller" on the door along with a few buildings and houses that looked like they were built long before the day the world went to hell.

"This is where the higher people in the community live." He said.

"Where's the edge of the town? Do you fence it in completely to keep the walkers out? Do you barricade yourselves in or just have people on a constantly keep guard over the town?" She yearned for answers.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on there Georgia. You're asking way to many questions for only being here for two minutes."

"Then what can I ask?" She thought of a simple, most logical question she should've asked before they even entered the town. Even before that. "Where am I going?"

Carolina pointed to a home on the edge of the street. It was a deep blue with a porch made of old-looking wood with a bench swing off to the side.. The whole house looked like it was from the 40's and desperately needed to be fixed up. It had a small oak tree freshly planted in the front yard with pink stones that surrounded the bottom, herb-looking plants that crowded the front side of the house and totally didn't match the rest of the town. Lu could only wonder what waited for her there. "There. A nice old couple live there that take in drifters before they're executed."

"What?" Lu shrieked and prepared herself to jump Carolina, take his gun and shoot him before he could shoot her, then make an escape.

He just laughed hysterically to himself. "No. I'm just kidding. We're not going to kill you, at least not without a trial, but you are going to stay with this couple. They're Norman and Philis Bates."

Lu looked at him quizzically. "Why are you doing this? You don't even know me. How do you know that I'm not going to attack these people once you leave and burn down your town?"

"Well," he sighed then lowered his voice, "Not trying to be racist, we have too much of that around here, but you're a girl. You're alone. You're young and naive. You're Caucasian and you don't know how to ride a horse properly. I don't think you're going to pose any threat to these people."

"I'm a badass. There's a reason why I'm alone." She whispered, trying to sound intimidating.

He leaned back to look her over. "Whose side are you on? After I dump you off I'm going to the city's board and tell them I found a young white woman and try to convince them to keep you around."

"Who says I want to stay?"

"It's either stay here or get thrown back out there. You'll be stripped of your horse, weapons and anything else they find useful on you. Or worse, you'll be put on trial as an attempt to harm this town and executed."

"What kind of town is this?" She breathed.

"Not-a one under God that's for sure." He started moseying along again. "We call it Kallenberg."

"Why did you bring me here then?" She grabbed his arm and squeezed.

"Because if I didn't find you first someone else would've!" He snapped and shrugged her off. "Just thank your lucky stars it was me who found you."

They stopped right next to blue house and dismounted. Carolina rapped on the door and hollered, "Mrs. Bates, it's Kennedy! I have a girl out here from up north. Came all the way down here to our tiny town-"

Suddenly the door swung open and out popped a tiny old black woman with black and grey bushy hair tied back in a ponytail. She laughed and gave 'Kennedy' a hug. "It's good to see you, dear. Norman took a walk out to the stalls earlier to see you and here you were gone. Been watching for you all afternoon. You were gone so loooong." She glanced at Lu and smiled. "I can see why now. Sweetie you look like you're about to die of heatstroke. Look at your face, all reeeed. Come inside and let Philis feed you…"

"Philis is an excellent cook." Kennedy tried to gush but failed at it. It remined her of how Daryl would try to be polite but not know where to go on from there.

The house was like an ice box. It was nice and cool with the shades pulled and walls painted with bright colors. It was a simple four part house with the kitchen running into the dining room that had the living room off to the side. There was a bedroom off of the living room and a bathroom right next to it. The house was covered in yellow or light blue wall paper with floral prints and oodles of old photos on the walls.

"Now you're from the northern country, is that right? Farther north then Kennedy?" Mrs. Bates pulled out two chairs out from the table for them then hurred to fridge where she pulled out a round pitcher of iced tea.

Lu's mouth watered as she sat and had to process the question again before answering. "No. I'm from Georgia but up in the mountains."

"Georgia? You a long way from home girl." She poured up two tall glasses. "You live alone?"

"With her brother." Kennedy answered for her. She shot him a look but he just returned it with a wink. He never sat down either, just stood over Lu, until Mrs. Bates set down their glasses in front of them and sat down herself. Then he sat as well.

She grunted. "Righ- You look to young to even be driving a car let alone traveling by yourself. Prey what is your age, child?"

"Thirty-one." She lied.

Kennedy tried to hold in a laugh.

"Lordie." She sighed. "You don't sound from around here either. I mean, you're not south. You have no solid accent. Do ya'll know what I'm saying, Kennedy?"

"Yeah, yeah I noticed that. I noticed you might not have called Georgia your permanent home all your life.." his voice trailed off, "Speaking of permanent residenes, the girl needs a place to stay while she's in town. Just until I talk to the board about her."

"What's there to talk about?"

"They need to decide if they should put her up with other people here in town or they can afford for her to have a house to herself." He lied with a sweet smile on his face.

"Oh nooooo. Child shouldn't be alone in a house. Not around here. To dangerous, to dangerous. Hey! If anything tell them she can live with us. I already know we'll get along just fine, sweetie." She reached over to pat Lu's hand.

Oddly Lu believed her. Though this all still seemed like a dream she felt completely at ease. The first time in a long time. Even in her dreams she was always on her toes ready to defend herself.

Hell, maybe this was Heaven…


	4. Guitars and God

Lu sat on the porch that evening sipping on another iced tea with her legs folded under her on the swing. Mrs. Bates quietly knitting under a lamp she dragged from inside, Mr. Bates sitting with his hands folded on his stomach, his guitar propped next to him.

"Louise," Mrs. Bates insisted on calling her that though she repeatedly corrected her. "Can you tell me why you were living with your brother, child? If you are thirty-one, which I don't down right believe, why you were with him rather then doing your ooown thang."

Lu chuckled. "Well you got me on the not being thirty-one part. I'm underage, that's why I was living with him, otherwise I think I would've split. My parents couldn't take care of me."

"That's to bad." She muttered. "I remember we had a young boy stay with us the summer before this last one. Do you remember that Norman? His name was Theodore. His friends called him T-D but we said 'no way' and called him Theo. You see we took in youngsters like yourself long before all this madness happened. Brought them in, gave them a place to sleep, fed them until they were round. Me and Norman here never had children of our own. I saw we were to busy taking care of everyone else though! I think that's why God put me on this Earth, Louise, to take care of his beings. Do you believe in God, dear?"

As Mrs. Bates was in the middle of her ramble, Mr. Bates picked up his guitar without a word and situated himself to start playing. Lu didn't get a chance to answer Mrs. Bates. When her husband started playing she lost interest in her own conversation and went back to knitting as if she hadn't said anything at all.

This gave her a chance to thin about what Kennedy told Mrs. Bates earlier. He lied to her about what he was doing. He was going to the board to talk about Lu, but not about where she might live but _if_ she might live. This was obviously just to protect her from the reality that she lived in but was he also protecting Lu from something else too?

Kennedy mentioned about the people hiding once they saw him coming down the road with a stranger on another horse. He told her that she was lucky it was him who found her and not someone else from here. Mrs. Bates tried to discourage Kennedy from allowing Lu to live alone saying it was 'to dangerous,' and even offered for her to live with them. That last bit might have been just a nice gesture but still things seemed too peaceful here to be a normal civilian refuge.

"Where are all the people?" She asked.

"Curfew." Mr. Bates grunted. "Do you play Louise?"

She shook her head. The last time she picked up a guitar she thought it to be her last, ever.

It was on the farm. Dale had brought back that guitar from the highway and no one claimed to play. Glenn tried teach himself but then got busy trying to keep secrets and decipher right from wrong. Before Lu would sneak off with it to the woodpile or on the back porch and sound out songs she knew by heart with a catchy, easy guitar tune. Most of them came from The White Stripes and Coldplay.

One morning she went to see Carl and played parts of Bon Iver's songs for him while he slept. The second time she did it he woke up for a moment but didn't say anything, the went back to sleep. That evening after super Lori caught her playing a soft random tune while talking with him about Sophia. Instead of anger Lori was touched and asked if she'd ever consider playing for the rest of the group around the fire one night or even for Hershel's family. "I know it'd mean a lot."

Lu never did though. She only played for an audience who didn't clap for her after she was finished.

When Carl was sick laying in bed she'd often find herself thinking a lot about death with Sophia also missing. She decided one evening after playing random chords that she was going to pray just like they did in the movies over her little friend. Her hands were not folded though, her eyes were closed and fingers constantly going. When she'd finish talking to God about Sophia and Carl, she'd go on and talk about T-Dog. Then she thought about Carol and how she must be hurting along with Lori and Rick. That led to a short prayer about Merle, wherever he was, and one for Daryl as well. Andrea and Dale needed strength to forgive one another along with Shane. Lu knew what he's been up to. Which reminded her of Glenn and Maggie, and all the rest of Hershel and his family. She thought the longer she prayed the more chances she'd get with one of her prayers coming true.

Lu found a nice fence to sit on and play one morning. Now that she was all healed up and they were in a more secure place Dale didn't have her doing the graveyard shift anymore. Instead she helped secure the farm and watch for Sophia. There was no need for her to do anything else. Especially now that Andrea wanted to play Annie Oakley and help protect the camp rather then do the woman's chores. This frustrated Lu because she was supposed to be the laid back tomboy ready to run with the guys. Now she has to pick up Andrea's spot and learn how to do the women's chores.

But not today. Today, at least this morning, was her morning of rest just like Jesus said to have. She was going to spend it praying and playing. If she did both at the same time maybe the miracle that worked on Carl would work on Sophia too. It was worth a shot.

Daryl had other plans instead. "You going to come with me to look for Sophia or what?"

That was not a question, that was a demand in the form of a question. There wasn't a way one could get out of it when Daryl said it.

Lu shook her head. "Maybe this afternoon."

"Maybe?" He gawked. "It'll be dark before we get back, Lu. What you got going on anyway besides making sure this fence is sturdy enough to hold a hundred and fifty pound girl?"

"I don't know. I just gotta pray for a bit." She shrugged and started playing again.

"Praying? To who? Aint no one up there Lu."

She ignored him. This made him even more pissed off.

"No one's up there, Lu! Aint no-"

"Then how do you explain Carl?" She snapped. "What do you think I did when I played for him? Huh? Sang? Sometimes, but mostly I prayed over him. For him and Sophia. For you. I asked God to heal him and he did… Playing just helps it."

Daryl cussed her out. Told her she was weak and stupid for believing something like that. He got to the point of rage where he took the guitar from her hands and was about to walk away with it, probably go somewhere to smash it or burn it. Lu attacked him though to get it back and begged him not to touch it because it was the only thing that has made her happy in a long time.

He let her be. "Fine. Ask stuff from your God. Play your guitar I don't care! Just don't be coming to me asking for anything then."

Later that evening Lu got back from chopping wood to find no Daryl. "He said he should be back before dark if he left when he did."

"Come on, why don't you come inside and help Carol and I make supper?" Lori offered. "We'll teach you a thing or two about cooking in a kitchen rather then over a fire. By the time you get back out here he'll be back."

But Lu stayed behind and said she'll come and help later. She'll do dishes afterwards if anything.

"Walker! WALKER!" Andrea hollered and picked up her gun.

Lu looked out to where Andrea was looking and sure enough there was a tall figure stumbling about the field of grass looking rather rough. She grabbed the axe she'd just been using and started out for the field before anyone else.

"Hershel wants to deal with walkers!"

To Lu's surprise it was Daryl. She thought him as a bitten victim turned and couldn't bring herself to throwing her axe into his head. She just stood there and let him draw closer to her. She hardly heard Rick holler her name before he cocked his gun and pointed it at him. "Daryl?"

He spoke. That was the first thing she remembered, then a bullet whizzing past Lu's head. She swore she could feel it brush her hair and feel the air come off of it right before it took residence into her brother's head.

"I was kidding!" He spoke.

Lu helped her brother to the house and held him down as Hershel bandaged him up. Her job was mostly to keep him talking like he did to her not to long ago when she had a concussion. She asked him basically knowledge questions until he could recite them front to back with some of his own Daryl-input.

"The damn horse who bucked me off a cliff was named Nelly. I have a baby sister name Emma Louise Dixon though she hates when I call her that, that's why I do it, and a brother called Merle. I'm from the stick of northern Georgia, born and raised. My name is Daryl fukcing Dixon and I'd say the last girl I dated was named Anna a couple years ago. She was way to young for me anyways and annoying as hell. Really bad teeth; She chewed, you know. Great tits though…"

"Ok." Lu dismissed herself and wandered out of the house. She picked up her guitar from wherever she set it last and brought it to the porch where it usually was. No one knew that she played for Carl except for Lori and even then she didn't say much about it. She just went inside with the other ladies to set the table and try not to cut her finger off as she diced cucumbers.

That evening Lu went to Daryl's room just to see if he was still alive. Carol had brought him some supper but he hadn't touched it. Afraid he'd get sick with all the drugs he's on. Must have been some strong ones because as soon as she sat down he told her to get her guitar and play him something.

"That song you were singing earlier on the fence sure sounded nice. I've heard it before. It's an older one though."

"I sang it a lot last summer." She didn't move.

"That's right." He laughed. "Merle would get so mad at you for singing it. You didn't know the words."

"I did to." She joked. "Think I still have them."

Daryl patted the spot next to him once then turned on his back. Lu didn't hesitate to side in next to him on top of the covers and fall back onto the overstuffed pillow that smelled like a hot iron. She believed that he was extremely looped up on drugs at this point. Just to confirm this he started singing the second part to the song she was singing earlier today. "So come sit by my side if you love me…" He sang extremely off-key.

"Do not hasten to bid me adieu." She harmonized. "Just remember the Red River Valley, and the cowboy that has loved you so true…"

Lu hummed the instrumental parts that remembered hearing. Those melodies were stuck in her head for years and years and never left. She continued until she thought that Daryl might've nodded off but when she stopped he turned his head to the left to stare at her.

"What happened to us, Daryl?"

"We got fucked." He answered.

"No, before that." She hit him with the back of her hand on his chest. "Before any of this shit. We used to be best friends and now we're at each other's throats almost smashing each other's stuff and taking sides against one another. You used to be my hero and I was your sidekick. What happened?"

He thought for a moment without taking his stoned-out eyes off her. "I think we both grow'd up."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Now, I'm not you're daddy I'm just a guy whose been taking care of you for the past ten years. I've only been picking up bits and pieces of this. Having a kid to raise should make you grow up yourself but the lingering idea that you're not mine sort of kept me down from that. I think this whole…" he used his hands to describe it, "situation really changed all of this. Loosing Merle and shit like that. This is growing up for both of us, specially you cause you're still really growing up."

"Oh." Lu folded her hands across her stomach and Daryl mirrored her. "Growing up sucks."

Lori told the rest of the group that Lu was playing for Carl while he slept . When Carl got better she said that it was the music that helped him pull out of it. Though Lu didn't believe a bit of it, the publicity of everyone knowing her little secret now gave her the confidence to walk around the farm with the instrument in hand and not worry about what anyone thought. They all knew she was a soulful musician now playing to heal.

It was a nice, more peaceful time in her afterlife; Her life after the apocalypse. Things were looking more bright after Carl got better and Daryl started to heal up. T-Dog was back in action too. The only thing that was missing was Sophia.

The day they found Sophia was the day Lu stopped playing for good. That's a different story though.

She told Mr. Bates another lie and said she didn't play guitar. Probably couldn't even if she wanted to anyway. Her fingers wouldn't move once they were over the strings and the tune of the song left her head as if it was never there.


	5. Another Brush with a Bullet

The next morning Lu awaited the man from yesterday to stop by. Kennedy was his name. Maybe it was his surname and people just called him that. Just another thing that kept her awake all night last night. Finally after the sun came up she shuffled outside to sit on the porch swing and tried to sleep on that. She was so used to sleeping outside now it was like she couldn't close her eyes without feeling that cool air on her face. Her little nap that morning would've been perfect if she had her blanket to cuddle up to.

Philis wanted to fix up her toe nails that morning after another bath and some breakfast. She hadn't had a proper showered with soap and warm water in almost three months, it was going to take a while for her to start smelling better. Her greesey hair was a total loss. Philis' home remedy she put in her bath though knocked her down though on the stink o'meter.

Lu sat on the porch swing and said a goodbye as Norman started down the steps and wandered down their street to the drug store.

"Morning!" She heard Norman greet someone not to far away.

It was Kennedy riding Nancy with Sprout following next to him. He didn't have his saddle, though he looked a lot happier without it for a change. Kennedy gave a wave to Lu as he trotted up their empty gravel driveway and dismounted right next to the porch. "Morning Georgia." He winked.

"Who are you?" She blushed. "And why do you keep calling me that?"

He jumped onto the side of the porch, holding on to the outside only by the railing and shrugged. "It's the only thing I know about ya… Plus you're the only person we've had from Georgia come here surprisingly."

"Isn't this Georgia?" She was confused.

"No ma'am. You're a hundred miles deep into Alabama, just half a day's ride from Mississippi. Didn't Philis and Norman tell you they're from Jackson?" Lu didn't answer. She was in too much shock. "Georgia?"

Suddenly Philis burst through the front door with a handfull of grooming tools. "All right Louise, take off your boots, take off your socks and go ahead and put those feet on the table. I'm to old to be bending over much anymore and you're a youngster, you more flexible. Let's see what the damage is."

"Louise?" Kennedy sneered. "That's seriously your name?"

"Lu." She corrected him. "Louise is my middle name."

Philis squealed. "My goodness girl, you got some model toes. Look how long they are?"

Lu pulled her foot away and laughed. "I'm ticklish there."

"Well you bout to break that. After I'm done you wont be." She grunted and started sanding her nails down.

"So what's your first name?" Kennedy wondered.

"People just call me Lu."

"Lu's your middle name, now what your- Hey, how bout a last name?" She didn't answer. "I'm not calling you Louise and don't believe it's proper to be calling a lady a name she shares with my cousin who went to prison for a lighting a field on fire. At least I might be able to call you by your surname."

"It's Emma. Emma Louise Dixon." She admitted. "I think I'd have to shoot you if you called me Dixon. That's what kids called me back in high school."

"That's not so bad, was it?"

"Not where I'm from. You remember high school don't you," that wasn't a question. "How old are you now anyway?"

"I think the real reason why you're doing all this is because you're stalling." He winked. "Just anxious to hear where you're going to stay here in Kallenberg."

"I already told ya'll, she can stay here. We'll make the attic up for her. I need a pair of young hands around here anyway." Philis interrupted.

"Did they decide?" Lu wondered.

He nodded. "They found it a hard decision though, not even knowing your name or anything of you other then what I told them

Lu understood that. She didn't, however, have any idea where to take it. She wasn't sure if Kennedy was completely on her side. He told her that she was lucky he found her first which is understandable, maybe if any other man or woman from this town found her they'd shoot her dead or something. Though if he really wanted to help her in the first place he would've sent her in the opposite direction with a warning and leave her alone. Maybe he thought he was helping dragging her into this town she didn't even want to be in.

It was nice to be around real people for a change. Philis and Norman were a very nice couple that just picked her up as she was. It was a family she never had the privlege of knowing. Even Carol and Lori wouldn't be this affectionate towards her. Maybe if they met the 'Lu' now, the lost, wet, more affectionate kitten that she was now rather then the cold all around 'Lu' she used to be.

Though the Bates were sweet people they were the _only _people she knew of in this town other then Kennedy. No one else seemed to be around, at least not on their side of the town. It was like it was too quiet. Things were leary and she wanted no part of it.

Plus, she was up to her neck in Alabama. Almost 200 miles from Atlanta and the chance that part of her old group was still alive and well. Maybe they were in a refuge town like this. They were in a group and traveled a lost slower then Lu did with just herself and her horse. They couldn't have gone too far from Hershel's farm in this time.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go fishing with me, actually, Ms. Dixon. You mentioned it yesterday, right? I'll bring you to my secret spot, you can keep whatever you catch." He said in a monotone voice.

"Okay." She agreed.

"Not until she gets at least a coat of polish on." Philis took out a bottle of nude colored fingernail polish and started dabbing Lu's 'model toes.'

The cool paint brushes up against her skin. She was never good at doing her own nails either. Never had a mom to teach her how to do them really. When she was fourteen and fifteen years old she'd always paint them black though and they always looked terrible. She tried to keep painting them after she turned sixteen but having the world go to hell a week after your birthday sort of made a dent in her schedule.

She promised Sophia that she'd paint her nails that one time after finding the bottle of pink shimmery goo on the road. Though she never saw Sophia again, the real Sophia, she still held her promise.

Lu was playing guitar by the wood shed when she heard Shane hollering across the yard. She paid no attention to it, Shane became a freak after he shaved his head and she was somewhere between a little afraid of him and totally fed up with his shit. She heard Rick hollering too, Dale and maybe even Lori. She finally got up, set her guitar asside to grab her empty double barrel gun and jingled the few shells she had in he pocket while making her way to where the hollering was happening.

At first she thought nothing of it, maybe just a family dispute. There was so much drama going on now days she decided to just stay out of it all, she knew too much anyways. Then the shooting started, and Lu started running.

She caught sight of the whole massacre as she hauled ass across the dirt road to see what this was about. She saw Hershel and Maggie and Beth and Patricia all gawking in shock while Lu's people held guns and opened fire on _their _people.

Huffing from running she slowed to a quiet walk and started to creep throughout the terrified people, some being her own like Carol, Lori and even poor Carl. As a small figure emerged from the barn and grimaced at the sun, Lu slowly, carefully reached into her pocket and took out a single red shell.

"Sophia!" Carol cried before Daryl grabbed her and drug her to the ground. He glanced at Lu walking towards them all but looked right through her. "Sophia?"

Lu mirrored Sophia walking over the dead bodies as she just walked through the living ones. Closer and closer they drew to one another. Sophia gnashing her teeth as she sized up her old friend walking towards her and Lu, mustering up the courage to do what she thought no one else might do, opened her barrel and slipped one shell in. As they drew closer to each other Lu raised her gun, closed her eyes and didn't stop until she heard a fire.

But it wasn't her own.

Lu felt the familiar sharp air of a bullet go whizzing past her head brushing up against her hair. The sound of it was less familiar though, but still just as terrifying as it was the first time. She opened her eyes to see Sophia fall to the ground, the exact reason why she closed them in the first place. It was already done though, it couldn't be unseen.

Everyone was quiet as Lu lowered her gun and turned her head slightly to see Rick behind her holding his pistol towards her. That was the second time that week that a bullet was inches from her face. This time it was on puropose. She wasn't sure whether to turn her gun on him or thank him for doing what she thought no one else could.

Everyone left eventually but Lu stayed in her spot. The past ten mintues she was the invisible person. No one saw her coming until she was there and even then they looked through her. No one bothered to console her but she doesn't blame them, they were all in shock. She would've turned them away because she was still cold all around like that.

Lu took the pink shimmery bottle of paint out of her pocket with the shells and turned it in her hand. She thought about throwing it across the field and forgetting everything, taking the Polaroid picture she had of Sophia the day she went missing and ripping it to pieces.

Her friend died today and it made her feel weak. She couldn't pull that trigger and it made her feel useless. It wasn't a good feeling, it was horrible. Destroying all evidence of this day would make it better. It would make it better. That's how she delt with her anger in the past forever ago. That's how she'd deal with sadness too. Rip it up, loose it or bury it. Doing all three of these things would surely help her heal. Bury Sophia, loose the bottle and destroy the picture.

But that was forever ago.

Lu once made a refrence that the days before the appocalypse were like her past life; This was her 'afterlife'. She was changed so drastically since then to terrible teenager to soldier of the Dixon-leauge to a humbled cripple and then a musical child of God. That wasn't even half of what she's gone through yet. It's where she's been, hopefully now this is who she's going to be.

I'm actually doing an author's note. Just want to point out the title of this new chapter and it's meaning because at first I just thought it was clever since this is the second time Lu will have a bullet inches from her head in one week. It's also as the saying goes "dodging a bullet" which means to successfully avoid a serious problem; Almost having to put Sophia down. I understand the feelings one might have towards this heavy scene in the show and me, messing with it. So sorry, but it's out there. Just had to write it out :-#


	6. The Missing Piece

Lu knelt beside her dead friend. Her truly _dead _friend.

She picked up her cold left hand and gave it a squeeze before she made herself comfortable on the ground. She set the shimmery nail poish on a flat part of the gravel, unscrewed the top off and started painting a thin layer of pink over her dirty nails. She let her be after that. One shouldn't tamper too much with the dead, especially when you knew them personally.

Lu remembers when she was younger and she had to go to her granddaddy's funeral. She must have been five. It was in the summer that's for sure. In the summer she'd stay with her Dixon side of her family in Georgia, in the fall she'd go back home to Minnesota. It wasn't her first summer there either so she had to have been five. She knew her granddaddy a bit, a harsh, cruel man just like Merle but with a soft spot for his grandbaby, Emma.

She remembered getting dressed up in a pink shirt-dress with Pooh on it but couldn't wear it without the white tights she always had with it. Merle and Daryl didn't do 'tights', sort of like they couldn't do hair or paint finger nails, and she couldn't get them on herself so she went without and felt ugly. That was the first thing she remembers, the second was how scary it was to see her grandpa laying in the casket like he was sleeping. She knew that he was dead and never coming back and the brothers seemed to be fine with that. Hell, the three of them skipped out early to go to the hunting cabin to catch the last half of the game at Sunday. Still, some people went up to him and laid their hand on his chest. How brave they seemed to be to do that. What if he decided to wake up and be mad at them for doing that?

To have the memory of those days when the only thing you feared from the dead was that their spirit might haunt you.

Lu walked past the house to the woodshed where she left her guitar. Instead of picking it up she sat next to it on a log just shaking. She's only shook this hard once in her life but she's repressed that memory. She heard little feet shuffling towards the shed from the other side and feared it was someone looking for her, going to trying to comfort her. That's the last thing she wanted was an arm wrapped around her when she didn't deserve it.

Carl glanced around the corner and slid onto the ground next to her. They've become something like friends ever since he'd been shot. After Carl came around when he started to heal Lu became to bashful to play for him so she'd play cards or try to get him to do some schoolwork. Though she hated playing cards she hated sixth grade homework even more.

He straightened up and dug into his pocket to pull out a small square white card and handed it to Lu. "Here." She took it from him. "I don't want it anymore. It doesn't feel right."

It was the picture of him and Sophia just a week or so ago. He was wearing the same shirt in that picture minus the cowboy hat but Sophia was also wearing her same clothes as well. They had their arms around each other smiling looking as alive and healthy as ever.

Instead of asking the obvious she took her guitar by the neck and started shaking it upside down until the second photo fell out of it's hole. She picked it up off the ground and held the two photos of Sophia in her hand for Carl to see. "I put it in there for safe keeping. Thought I'd give it to Carol one day but I didn't want to offend her or anything. I'm usually pretty good at that."

Carl took a liking to the one of Sophia looking through the car window. He didn't reply when Lu was talking to him. He realized he was having second thoughts about keeping his picture until she handed the one of him and her back. He just shook his head and leaned back on the shed.

Lu flipped his hat off his head. "Hey!" Rick must have had it filled in nicer so it can sit on the kid's head without falling off. She stuck the picture on the inside brim of his hat nice so it'd stay and placed it back on his head. "Please, Carl."

He took off his hat to examine what she'd done.

"Now don't go loosing it. Always keep it nice, I might come asking for it back one day." She said with her breath steady. Carl nodded in agreement and blinked a number of times to hold back tears, then put his cap back on. "Do it for me."

Instead of one coming to comfort her like she feared, it was the exact opposite. Never did she imagine someone searching to find her in _need_ for some consoling they probably never even knew they needed. It was good to feel needed. She never felt like someone wanted her around, ever. Since day one she's always had to be the one tagging along or begging for helpexcluding her few walker kills.

She put an arm around Carl and gave him a squeeze then sent him off. People were talking about holding a funeral for their people. The last funeral she attended was her granddaddy's over ten years ago, didn't even go home for her grandmother's in Minnesota last fall. After the world ended she vowed she'd never attend another celebration of death again, it just wasn't fair to the other six billion people in the world who will never have one. She was not going to make this about her, she just planned to slip away quietly while everyone buried their dead.

Lu got up and went to the empty RV. Carol and Daryl must have gone to the service. She just needed a moment to go through some of the stuff they had in the camper. Most of it was just junk one would use for camping. More luxurious camping. She found an oval picture frame that has a embroidered picture of an old tin camper on it that read 'Home Is Where The Heart Is' in the bathroom drawer. She measured the size of it and the picture up, took the generic cloth out-no one would miss it much-and put the picture of Sophia in it instead. She wandered back to the kitchen area and took down the "How bout a nice cup of shut the hell up" plack down and replaced it with Sophia. Now everyone can see how happy she is in her new home.

Lu ended up on her fence in the same spot, the same one that Dayrl told her she was too fat for or something the other day. He didn't really say that but when you're a teenager things tend to run like that.

She started strumming but forgot what she was playing her guitar. She forgot everything that she played. All the songs she sounded out, the notes and tricks she learned all ran dry from her mind. Maybe it was just shock or nerves. The first time she played for Carl she didn't know where to start even though he was a quiet audience of one.

She then tried praying. Usually when she started praying she'd start making up notes and stuff to go along with what she was feeling, but nothing came to her mind either. She thought of Carol's sorrow and how Rick must feel having to pull the trigger to save Lu from that burden but didn't know how to put it in words anymore to tell it to God.

Was she suppose to ask forgiveness? Course not, Rick was doing what he had to do. If Lu would've done it it would've been the same. If anything she'd have to ask forgiveness on herself for not being able to pull the trigger when she needed to so she didn't make Rick do it.

Maybe she was suppose to ask for courage for Carol, thought Carol was already a brave woman for already loosing her husband. There had to be something better to ask for her but nothing came to Lu's mind. Maybe comfort? Though she had Daryl for that. The two of them had become a little closer since his accident. She played a big part in nursing him along, maybe it was his time to return the favor by helping Carol through this, though talking it out wasn't really his thing…

And her mind kept trailing off and on like that for what seemed forever.

Finally after several moments of aggravation and arguing with herself she started pounding on her six stringed instrument. It echoed throughout the field but didn't make enough noise to soothe her nerves. She pressed her fingers to the strings on the neck unti they throbbed with pain to make a higher pitched sound when suddenly something seemed to bite her ring finger.

She stopped to look down at her guitar to see she broke the fourth string down from the top. It dangled from the neck. Limp, useless, dead. She tried strumming the rest of the five strings from top to bottom only to determine it was done for. It had no other purpose in life. It no longer made beautiful music but just sound with something missing in it.

It was like her now, just a girl with a big piece missing in the middle of her body.

Lu grabbed it by the top of the neck, hopped down from her fence and swung it with all her might at the post. It staggered a bit as the guitar grew a giant crack on its side. That one was for being a coward, for not having the guts to pull that trigger first. It felt good, so she swung it again. The next one was for Sophia. The next one was for the secrets that brought them to this mess. The one after that was for Merle and how she hated him so much after all the years and for Daryl because he didn't do a damn thing to prevent it.

She swung again and again as the sound of hollow wood started breaking in her hands. She threw it over her head like she was chopping wood, and brought it down on the spot she was just sitting on. The body broke off of the neck and the only things holding it together were the strings. As she brought it up again she had seen what she'd done and threw it away from her. It sits in two pieces with bits surrounding it now.

Lu looked down at her hands.

"Come now Emma it's only a dream."

But it wasn't. It was very much real and wouldn't leave. She had a moment of doubt if she could keep doing this. Doing what she's doing. Killing to eat, killing to live, killing to survive. Will it come to one day killing just because it's fun? If it doesn't come for her who will be victum to it?

She needed to be stronger then this. Words of Merle filled her head, whatever they were. She was never a little girl to him, only a weak soldier. Both him and Daryl. They were tough and none of this seemed to affect them, because they were tough. She yearned to be tough like them, maybe even if it meant learning to be them.


	7. October 22nd

Lu rode Sprout with Kennedy and his horse Nancy to his super secret fishing spot. He was so clever, even brought two rods and a tackle box to really convince Lu that they were actually going to fish. He seemed calm and collective though when they rode together, a rope still connecting their horses except this time it was a little longer. He must've done this often. Maybe he was the town executer. The one who brings strangers to far off 'secret' places to kill them so they won't stir the neighborhood and the body can easily be disposed of.

She wondered to herself if he'd just dump her in the river and let her body wash into the lake, feed her to the walkers or burn her. He wouldn't have the decency to bury her or anything, surely.

"Do you purposely not give your name to people when you meet them?" She asked.

"I could ask the same for you, Emma."

She ignored him. "It's just gets a little personal, don't you think?"  
"It could." He nodded. "I don't think I have to worry about that with you though."

"How do you do it?" She wondered, trying to make him say it out loud. _Just tell me that you do it because you have to or because you need to or because you love to you gorgeous son of a bitch._

"Do what?" He replied sharply and looked at her confused face. He got it and sneered at her accusation. "I don't."  
"So, you just leave your people in the middle of no where and their fate be decided-"  
"No, I mean I'm not your fate. I'm not nothing but a person wanting to go fishing."  
"With another total random stranger you just met yesterday."

He reared up on Nancy and brought their ride to a halt, then circled around Sprout so he was on the other side of Lu facing the opposite direction. He lowered his voice. "A random stranger who can tell me what's it's like on the outside now."  
"What?"

He sniffled and dismounted Nancy and started leading her through his trail. "I've been in this town since the beginning of July. The farthest I've strayed from it is three miles south here to the lake since then. I'm not one they trust to go out and-"

"Wait." She hopped down from Sprout and pointed her finger at him. "What day is it?"

He shrugged. "Thursday."

Her eyes widened with amazement. "The date?"

"October 22nd I believe." He smiled his cocky smile. "How old are you, Emma?"

Creeper. "Lu is thirty-three."

He shook his head. "I don't believe that. _I'm _only thirty-two, you're about ten years younger then me."

"Guess." She challenged.

"Twenty."

"Lower."

"Fourteen."

"Higher!" She objected.

He thought for a moment and chewed on the side of his thumb then finally said, "Sixteen."

Lu swallowed. "And a half…"

He just laughed and started walking again. "What's a sixteen and a half year old girl wandering around by herself, now? You got a group don't you?"

"I _had_a group. We were separated."

"So now you're all solo-gunslinger, lost boy, living off the land with your horse Sprout."

"For at least four months now." She confirmed.

"What about the other refuges? I heard Atlanta was a dead end from the start… D.C was hopeless."

"If you have a town full of fugitives why don't you just ask them? I'm sure they all have their stories."

"None of them would know the world, I understand, the way you do now. I believe you've seen more then they have because you're a single. Everyone we've brought in have pairs or else small groups… Singles don't stay long around here. That goes double for single white folk."

"Okay," she stopped Kennedy. "We both have a lot of questions that need answering. We either argue or we do a question each. I hate to do that because we're both mature adults but I'm afraid it has to come to that."

"Well," he raised his eyebrow and was about to say something pertaining to that but stopped himself. He sighed. "You go first."

She staggered for a moment. She didn't really have a top-priority question, mostly she was just curious about his town. She thought for a moment for a question that could answer more then one in just one shot. "Why don't 'single' white people stay around here very long? You're white."

"Because you're a stone throw away from both Louisiana and Mississippi. Most of this town consists of people from either the African or Hispanic race. I'd like to say people don't stay around because they feel as if they don't fit in but sometimes, like you know, they're just shut out, if you know what I mean."

"You mean they're killed because they're not-"

He hushed her and started walking on again. "Save your question til the next round. Now what I want to know from you is all the refugee camps you've seen and heard of that are overrun including small civilizations such as these."

Lu thought quickly. "Um… D.C. is gone, Fort Benning is overrun, Atlanta was done long before it should've been... The Center of Disease Control. We met a doctor there but he was little help to us. It was a dead end. As for other civilizations it took me to travel over a hundred miles west to bump into you. You were the first living person I'd seen in almost four months."

"And the non-living ones?"

"Ah!" She exclaimed. "Save that question for the next round. I told you what you needed to hear, now I want to know is what will your people do with me when we get back to town?"

"It's hard to say." He replied casually. "They might make you stay with the Bates for a while. They might kill you. They might accept you as a new neighbor. They might make you their pet, give you as a gift to the men on the council … I promise you I'd kill you before I'd let them do that to you though."

"Can I leave?"

Though it wasn't Lu's turn he still answered. He answered all her questions about her life without hesitation. At the moment she can't leave unless she runs on foot. If she tries to overthrow her position no one will hesitate to kill her. If she stays at the Bate's house she's as safe as she'll ever be. If they decide to let her live on her own it'll be sketchy but no one _should _hurt her, much. If she's made to be basically a prisoner of the town, and Kennedy can't do a think about it, he'll put her down with her permission.

"Can't you do anything about this? You said you were one of the people who helped build this town! Aren't you on the council or have friends there?"

"It's a matter of the color of your skin and ethnic background here, Em." He reminded her. "Me and some neighbors and friends of mine, some of us closer then others, were traveling together and started planting our feet here. Shortly after we were joined by a few more. We lost some of our originals, one by one, and were joined by others… I just try to stay in the back now for fear of my life."

"Why don't you leave?"

"The same reason why you can't, I'll be hunted, probably, and killed." He answered sharply. "What's it like otherwise on the outside?"

"Like Hell on Earth. Who runs the town now?"

"A man named Roger and his friend Carlos. Do you want to run away together?"

"What?" She stammered. "Y-You just said that I can't leave. You can't leave!"

"Do you want to run away together?" He repeated.

"What? Are we going hold hands as we ride into the sunset? Two redneck wanna-be cowboys taking on the undead world. No way, if I'm leaving I'm leaving alone."

"I'm not asking you if you want to elope I'm asking for help." She stopped. "I don't know what's out there. Last time I checked we had people living in their houses up the hill a ways away peacefully, now they're buried in their own yard. Last time I was out everyone thought we had a handle on this, that there's going to be a cure. From what you tell me now, and from what I've heard form others, we've got just as much as a fighting chance as anywhere else."

"You've got the street smarts but you don't have the muscle. You lack fighting skills though you have the know how to survive, but you're still just one little girl. You're an easy victim for someone to hurt, that's why I captured you before anyone else could. I saw a pretty girl whose made it this far by herself with a double barrel gun and knows how to use it, thought you can make it a little farther with my help."

Lu shook her head and gaffed. "You ask what it's like on the outside though. You ask about the dead as if it's the only thing we have to worry about. It's the living too! Take your racist town for example. If I tell you every which way you turn there's walkers, that every one you've ever known is dead and probably still walking around wants to kill you, will you still want to go? Maybe if it's not as bad as you think, huh, you'll go?"

"You're not scaring me away, Emma."

She laughed. "I have seen a man handcuffed to a roof cut off his own hand to escape them. I call him my brother, Merle. You need to have that endurance if you're coming with me. You need to have guts because I've seen a water-downed walker be torn in half and still crawling to it's next meal… and heart, because there is such things as zombie-babies, and I have seen my fair share. It's sad and it sucks."

Lu walked up to Kennedy and leaned into his neck. He turned his head away and tensed up his body. She whispered, "We're all infected. We are the living zombies. Time bombs just waiting to die and turn into monsters."

She then grabbed his hand and folded it between hers to make a his pointer finger and his thumb stick out then pointed his 'hand-gun' to her forehead. "If you haven't learned by now, when you kill the living you _got _to shoot them in the head. It's so easy for them to just get right back up again and follow you into your town. I've never experienced it but overheard it once from somebody that I used to know. I believe he's dead now too."

Kennedy removed his hand. "So, Georgia, what will it be? East or west?"

"Is that you're final answer for this round?"

He nodded.

"My choice would be east. I would like to go home. If anyone from my group would still be there they wouldn't stray as far as I did without going towards something. The question is now _when_?"

"You pick the destination I'll pick the moment."

"The moment?"

"Yeah, not like we can just pick up and run off around here. No one's ever left Kallenberg besides laying dead in the back of a truck. It's not smart to leave right before winter either."

"So we're going to stay here, wait out the winter in this hell hole?" She objected. "My life is dangling by a thread. My options are to live, raped and killed and just killed."

"Believe it or not you have more of a chance living here then out there."

She stood back and examined him. "And you're the expert? I understand you must have had to thrive off of survival instinct for some time before ya'll established your little town, how many days have you had to go without the luxuries that one would have in this situation. A running vehicle, more then the clothes that you're wearing right now, a gun that you don't have to reload after shooting it twice?"

He didn't answer, just watched her as she had her minor temperamental freak out.

"The moment they decide either two of my three fates I'm getting my horse, grabbing my gun and taking down anyone who stands in my way. That includes you. Don't underestimate me, Kennedy, I am unarmed but severely dangerous."

"You're severely pissed off too, I can see that." He grabbed her by her shoulders. "The moment they call you on the carpet Emma, I'm going to be there. I'm on your team. You're the only ally I have and I'm not letting anything happen to you."

For the first time since Daryl once said earlier that summer 'I've got your back, Lu,' she believed a man in her life. This one just walked into hers to the day before too. How strange she felt about this Kennedy character but something told her to trust this one. Maybe he'll actually follow through with his promise unlike Daryl.

Lu stopped herself before she could think anymore bad thoughts about her brother(s). They were dead and she needed to honor them, though she still had sour feelings towards the both of them. Same problem, different reasons.

She tried to let go of them for fear that they'd drag her down into another metamorphosis again. If she had to go through another depressing spell again she swore she'd shoot herself in the head. She liked who she was right now, here, standing in the middle of a trail in the forest, with Kennedy.


	8. The New Soldier

On the way back from fishing Lu and Kennedy kept playing their 20 question game. Kennedy was curious more about who she was before 'Z-Day' then how she came upon Kallenberg's land. It was sort of a tender topic, about the farm and the fire, so she didn't say much about it. Plus, getting to know who each other were in their 'past life' was more fun then talking about these darker days.

Kennedy told her about him and his son, Issac, always going fishing together. "He would've been nine this September." He didn't mention if he was ever married or about the Sophia-girl on his arm, though. He told her that he went to college for two years before he had to drop out because his mom died. He had to finish raising his little sister. After she herself went off to college he found out he was going to have a baby.

Lu told him completely bogus lie about how she was rasied with a mom and a dad who loved her to death and weren't crazy and losers. She had two brothers quite a bit older then her who were more into hunting and fishing and taught her everything she needed to know how to survive. She told him that they were so close they practically raised her and loved their baby sister and did everything they could to protect her through the appocalypse, failing to protect their parents. They ran into a nice group in Atlanta who she was just separated from after a nasty zombie-attack four months earlier.

"I don't buy it." He accused. "You're way to cold and brutal to have had to survive this long."

"A spoiled girl like me having to fend for herself for a change, it makes someone take a gander at their life a little differently. Makes them stronger, like a soldier."

They didn't see one walker on the way there or back either. It was a personal record of hers, not having to kill one walker in at least three days. They argued back and forth playfully for most of the ride back to Kallenberg's city limits. It brought her back to the day where she and Daryl would do the same thing, both ending it at a draw and leaving it there.

"Did you ever think about leaving your group?" Kennedy inquired.

Lu nodded but didn't tell him the whole story. " Thought I was strong enough to do so. My brothers would have. I almost did at one time..."

It was right after the group and the Greene's burried their dead, right after everyone found Sophia in the barn and Lu smashed her guitar. It was that same day Lu made a decision to press onto Fort Benning whether anyone was going to come with or not.

Actually she secretly hoped no one would even notice she was gone. After Glenn and Rick went off to find Hershel, Lu planned to take one of the horses-since one would be missed less then a whole vehicle-pack up her necessities and press on south-east until she found Fort Benning. Just slip away while everyone falls apart, no one would hardly notice her.

It was better then sitting here mourning over their dead. Everyone was dead.

Lu wrote a note and put it up with the picture of Sophia in the camper.

Dear friends and brother,

Gone to Fort Benning.

Take care of yourselves,

Lu Dixon.

That about sums it up.

She left it in the RV and went to gather up her things. She figured if she left before supper was started there'd be less of a chance for anyone to read the note before she got a chance to run away. When she made her way over to the stalls she thought about Carl. The poor boy didn't need to lose two of his closest friends in one day, but then she shoved that idea out of her head. They'll all be reunited again soon.

Lu sat in the stall with Nelly and the other one with the silly name, Sprout, and thought to write Hershel a note of appologies about taking his horse. She hoped at Benning they'd let her keep whichever horse she was planning to take, probably Sprout since he wasn't as skiddish as Nelly, and they won't plan on keeping him or anything.

Suddenly a shadowy figure threw open the barn dorn, stepped in and shut it with a loud _thud_. Daryl held Lu's note in his hand up at eye level.

"So this is what you do?" He threw it at her and stomped away only to turn back and charge her again. "You hover over Sophia long after we leave, disappear for forever, skip the funeral to throw yourself a pity party and now you're leaving because you want to redeem yourself."

"What the hell were you doing in the RV? Aren't you suppose to be making Carol cry or wander off by yourself, getting yourself killed?"

"I was looking for you! So I can give you a personal ass-whooping for all the shit you've pulled today. I have to watch you like a hawk because this is exactly what I was afraid you'd pull. Now what's this about leaving for Fort Benngin? Why am I the last to know?"

"You're the first to know!" She shot up off of her bench. "I was going to slip away quietly, have no one notice me until I'm hours down the road. I would be long gone doing what we should've done weeks ago. I wouldn't have been your problem anymore."

"Ugh!" He threw his fist down in anger. "You're so stupid, Lu! You never think this stuff through! First of all what makes you think after you forsake this group for your own naive game that they'll ever take you back? Even if you thought about leaving for Fort Benning, let alone actually packing up for it and ready to take Hershel's horse and… What happens if you go down the road? You actually leave without telling a soul and you run into another heard of walkers, or you get bucked off of ole Nervous Nelly leaving you stranded or for fuck's sake you-"

"Okay _mom_," She sneered. "Quit worrying about me, you're not my daddy. Hell, you're not anything but somebody I used to know. We may share the same blood type but that doesn't make us family. This is the most you've talked to me since _you _got shot in the head, and I made that attempt, and you were higher then a kite! I can't recall anything before that because living with YOU and MERLE…" She stepped back and put her hands up in front of her, "makes me want to forget."

"Forget what, Luie? All we've done for you?"

"All you've done _to_ me. You may not realize it because that's what you grow'd up with. Raising a girl to believe it's fine to be pushed around by her father isn't right, Daryl! These people we're with now, that's a family and I see that now… I'm going to do right for them by leaving, to help them."

Daryl looked down at his rough hands and started picking at something on his thumb like he didn't care. "Forsake your last brother for a whole new family, eh Emma?"

The last time Daryl called Lu 'Emma' without 'Louise' behind it, it before they met with Shane's group. It was the time she fell off that hill cracking her ankle, Merle carried her to their camp all banged up and bleeding and set her in the box of the pickup. She specifically remembered Daryl calling her Emma a few times, sometime in there, as she was fading in and out of sleep that night. There was a good chance they'd loose her. They almost _lost _her.

Lu took a breath. "You could come with."

Daryl gave her a look.

"You should come with." She said casually. "Daryl. I need you to come with. I'm not loosing everything completely, not all in one day."

"You may have not grown up the way a kid should have but you're not a kid anymore. You've been the best father you coulda been looking at the way your daddy raised you and Merle. I can see it, my granddaddy, still living in Merle pushing ladies around and drinking until he can't see straight. I'm proud of you for that and it took me until the apocalypse to realize… everything. It took me til just now when you called me Emma to realize I don't want to loose everything."

He still wasn't convicned. She could see it in the way her looked at her.

"When I yell 'daddy' I yell it at you. When I run away form something I'm going to run to you. I don't want to be your niece or just another relative. I'm not your wife and I'm not your sister, I'm what you've raised me to always be. Your daughter... But I'm not yours." She backtracked as she saw his eyes lighten. "I shouldn't be your problem and I'm probably just wasting my breath telling you all of this. Spare me your childhood horrors and tell me if you're coming or staying."

"At least stay for supper." He replied after a long moment of consideration.

Daryl ended up coming to Lu later that evening after she failed to come join the group for supper. He told her point-blank that if she was leaving he was leaving too, just not with her. He'd go his own separate way, better that way. They'd probably never see each other again. If she'd stay though, he'd stay.

"If you get on that horse and ride away then I've failed as a father to you. If you stay I can finish raising you. Raise you right this time." He said. "Don't mean we're not going to have our differences though."

Those words was what kept Lu around.

Shane returned with Lori to the camp without Rick and Glenn. She didn't like Shane that much. He was a cop, for one, and knowingly looked down at her. Who and what she was; An unstable, redneck teenager whose 'brother' cut off his own hand. He mostly looked out for himself, though he claims to live for Lori and Carl, and didn't care for the group much, in her opinion. She was tempted to go out and finish the job he failed to complete: Bringing Rick and Glenn back.

Daryl told her to just cool it and just keep watch for them. It's what she was good at, waiting and watching.

"I stayed around though. Mostly for my brother. He, uh, sort of removed himself from the group after that though."

"Did that bother you?" Kennedy leaned forward while riding Nancy to look at Lu's face.

"I was sort of ticked at first but it's just the way he is. It's the just the way we're wired. Dixon's survival instinct you could call it. I'm just as guilty of it."

They rode on. "That's too bad."

"Not entirely."


	9. From Across the Yard

Kennedy came walking down the street this time holding the reins of both Sprout and Nancy in one hand and a grocery bag in the other. Phyllis was shaking out rugs on the porch and called for Lu who was cutting wood in the back yard. "Louise, Kennedy's here! Ya best get your best dress on girrrl because he is looking sweet today… What you got there boy in that bag?"

"Oh," he looked down, "Just something for Emma."

She focused her eyes. "Better be a bouquet of flowers in there. She's really gonna get her best dress on for you. Can't go on a date without giving the girls flowers…" She wandered away.

"Nothing can compare to the beauty of you, Mrs. Bates." He hollered before she glanced at him through the screen door and chuckled.

Lu came bouncing around the house in a long flannel shirt of Norman's wearing her own, thinner long sleeved flannel shirt and an old T she found in the Bate's attic. The same jeans she's been wearing for a little over five months now covered her legs and old boots. "Cold enough for you?"

"I've suffered through worse. I am about fifteen years older then you."

She laughed. "Age is just a number, baby."

He turned his head away to hide his embarrassment and handed her the bag. "Here. Thought you might need some clothes for the winter. I just had to guess your size. Girls sizes are much more complicated then guys."

"Oh you could've just gotten guys clothes, I'm used to them… but thank you." She said sincerely and held up the thick, light blue jeans to her waist. She looked at the tag to check the size and saw that they were from American Eagle. Back in the sticks she never had the luxury, or money, to go shopping at the malls and wear fashionable clothes like that. Like she just told Kennedy, she usually just wore Daryl's old clothes.

In the bag there was also a lightweight, blue rain jacket, two long sleeved girly thermals, a pair of sweat pants (also named brand) and a bra.

"The doctor's wife gave me that!" He said quickly. Lu raised her brow. "Um. You haven't met her. She's sort of a hermit but she's seen you around town and just guessed, er, your size or something…"

She looked at the tag on the wireless bra. "36-C. Spot on."

"What?" He started then shook his head. "Neither mind. I don't want to-"

"How'd you get your hands on these?"

"Uptown, the doc has a stash of clothes in the back of his store. His wife is thinking about starting a store but people are butting heads about it. Most of them were salvaged from abandoned cars and houses. None of which she's seen, but because I helped gather most of them she let me have whatever I want."

"Thank you." She grasped the pair of sweat pants in her hands then thought the moment was too sweet. She looked down at the pants and said, "Is there blood on these pants?"

"What?"

"Just kidding." She smiled then showed him them.

"Right." He said. "I suppose you're to busy being funny today to go on a ride."

"Where to today? I don't suppose we haven't made enough trips to the lake yet before it completely freezes over." Lu mounted Sprout and took his reins. "No rope today?"

Kennedy shook his head. "Na. In this cold I don't think you'll be getting very far."

The two trugged through the frost covered ground on their familiar trail neck and neck with each other for a while until Sprout got too tired out.

"He's slowing down in his age. Poor ole fool. We've been together since summer."

"You should take Nancy when you leave." He stopped himself as he dismounted from his black beast. "If you leave... She's younger and faster."

"I like to go fast." Lu flirted. Kennedy didn't respond. "Oh, come on! You walked into that one."

"I did. Yes I did." He admitted timidly as he smiled at the woods and out to the cold, dead lake. "The thing is Emma, I can't… chase you around. I'm old! It might be cute when you say things like that to me-it is cute-but if I reply the same that makes me a dirty old man."

"Says who?" She looked around. "Say the world, in general? Well… I don't see much of it left… I don't see any gentlemen my age that are left either."

"I'm not a gentleman."

She scoffed. "You spare my life, put me up with two cool old peope, take care of my horse, bring me fishing and gives me clothes. I don't think my own brother's would've ever done that for me."

"Were your brothers that harsh?" Lu gave him a look. She's made known to him that they are probably both dead and she doesn't like to talk about them. He took her hand instead and looked at her face. "Tell me a secret then, you lovestruck girl."

"Ask me a question." She challenged.

He opened his eyes a little wider. "What happened to you before you got separated from your group?"

"That's no secret."

"I still want to know." He pressed.

Lu let go of his hand and wandered away to a tree laying on its side and took a seat. Kenned joined her and invited her into his arms. She didn't hesitate to move in close to him and have his arm wrap around her just like they were magnets fitting perfectly together.

"I don't even know where to start."

"Start from the end and work your way back." He suggested. "Start from the time you met me to the beginning. Tell me everything, I don't mind."

"It'll get dark before I could get everything in." She started but then stopped and thought. Darkness. It was dark when she was driven out of what she called home, but like every evening, it always had a morning.

"There was once two cowboys, two housewives, two children, two rednecks, three bachelors and a mad as hell woman all forced to travel with each other once upon a time. They defended each other from walking dead people but couldn't always keep up with these times. They lost a little child, a girl, named Sophia one day. The next day the little boy was accidently shot." She looked up to see his face. It was neutral for the most part. "This brought the group to a farm owned by a man named Hershel and his small family. He stitched up the boy, showed hospitality to all of them but wanted them off his farm. He was old fashioned, couldn't wrap his mind around this world yet until one unfortunate accident changed him."

"He agreed to let the group stay on the farm as long as they agreed to help protect it. People were changing all over the place, it was amazing but also scary."

"The mad as hell woman?" He asked.

Lu scoffed. "I wasn't the angry woman. I don't know… Maybe I was the second child, the other redneck or a housewife for all you know."

"What about the one called Emma?"

She shrugged. "She was scary. She was angry and scary and wanted to leave the farm by any means necessary at one point. It wasn't until she realized she didn't want to lose everything she had is when she lost it. Her new family, her beloved brother she called a father figure, and that beautiful farm… I'd be happy if I never had to leave that yard again, it was beautiful. I would've died defending it… which it came pretty close to."

"_Emma_," she allowed to roll off her tongue, "Was keeping watch on top of an old wind mill that sat on the edge of the property one cold evening. The men were out looking for a lost young fellow. Daryl told her not to come with, it was too dangerous and she was notorious for doing crazy things."

"There was a lot of commotion that night. It drew a heard of walkers right on their front step. Instead of running back to the house she thought she could take them out with a rifle and whatever she had in her pockets but they just kept coming." Lu recalled with a lump in her throat. "I hopped down from my post and only made it to the horse's shed before watching smoke roll out of the barn on the other side of the house. I heard every vehicle on the farm deploy for action with people shooting at whatever moved."

"I let the other horses go but saddled up Sprout, the calmest of the bunch, and started riding towards the house where Hershel was shooting like a mad man. He told me everyone was looking for me but I didn't see anyone. Just the RV catching fire as it sat overrun with walkers. I couldn't help but wonder how many were even in there."

"Hershel told me to go in the basement where he has a double barrel rifle and a tote full of shells and he'd cover me. It's not much but it was something… Little did I know that little something was going to be my best friend for the rest of the summer."

"I grabbed a flashlight that was sitting on the counter in the kitchen and headed downstairs. Sure enough there was a rifle right above the washer and dryer with a tote that read 'shells' below it on a shelf. I dumped everything in an old green bag before I ran upstairs. All chambers were loaded and got outside everyone was gone." She sprawled out her hands for exaggeration. "Hershel either had gotten away or was drug off somewhere. No engines were within an earshot. No sounds but the burning of the old barn and a hundred walkers going for Sprout."

"He was smart though and kept them running. I called for him and grabbed onto his saddle and held on for dear life as we hauled ass away from the walkers and into the unknown." She gulped. "Four months later of dodging dead people and sparing bullets she ran into a man who took her to a town where the people weren't dead, they were just ghosts."

He leaned back. "What do you mean?"

"I've been in Kallenberg for a month and I've never met this city council you insist upon, nor have a seen more then a few people who come to visit the Bates. Kennedy, you can't insist this is normal! There's no people in the street, no children playing. No laughter, no noise or-"

Kennedy leaned in close to Lu and looked around suspiciously. "Noise isn't the only thing that attracts walkers you know that. There's bad people in the town which is why I think now is the best time as ever to leave."

"Now?" She looked around her. There was frost and cold everywhere. It was November. That was crazy.

"Even if your life depended on it?"


	10. Ted and Sophia

It had to have been December by now.

Lu was apart of the town for at least a month and a half, only socializing with people she was introduced to such as a nice young woman named Ann and her daughter Farrah who originated from Florida, before that Puerto Rico. Another was one of Norman's friends, Gregory, who was a little younger then Philis and stopped by the house twice a week for supper.

Another guest they had for a few days not long ago was a gentleman in his late thirties named Theodore. Or at least that was what Philis called him. Lu grew to calling him Ted as long as he called her Lu and not Emma, but between Philis and Kennedy always calling her 'Emma', _Theodore _and everyone one else they came across caught on to calling her by her first name.

Emma Louise and Theodore became friends during his short stay with the Bates. She had help doing the harder, heavy lifting chores around the house and he had someone to talk to that was also in the same situation he was in.

Ted had lost his wife earlier that summer due to an illness, and his younger sister due to "her own brave stupidity," but was still traveling with their group that took them in. One night a few walkers made them flee their campsite and they were all separated. That's when some of Kallenberg's thugs found him wandering off of the road. Unaware that people are much harsher now days he let them take him to their town, beat him up for information about his own group and put him up with the Bates. He was waiting on the city council to decide his fate.

"I wouldn't sweat it if I was you," Lu told him the next day before suppertime while Mr. and Mrs. Bates were preoccupied. "I've been waiting on the council for a month to say if I'm staying or going. Really I'm just waiting for my chance to break out of this hellhole."

It wasn't a long wait. Kennedy was the one to come by and tell the Bates one afternoon that Theodore had decided to venture off by himself to find his group again. He told them, lied to them right on their own porch, that the council gave him supplies and a welcome back if he ever needed it. Lu knew though that they'd never see him again.

She gave him a look and took off upstairs quietly while the Bates told Kennedy how nice he was and wished him the best luck. They were utterly clueless. They didn't know that these mysterious people of the town probably took him out into the woods, made him kneel to the ground and shot him in a way where he could never return to haunt them. She couldn't help to wonder if they even bothered to bury his body or they just left it to fatten up a coyote or a bear. Maybe they were considerate enough to dump him in the lake or even set fire to it.

That's how Lu wanted to go. Be rid of this earth by being burnt not put in it! She'd be turned to ashes while the rest of her escaped into the atmosphere. It was a beautiful thought as long as it was her who was being cremated rather then the monster that wanted to take over as soon as she died. In other words, she didn't ever want to be a walker. She'd rather take a bullet to the head before that happened.

When Lu came down from upstairs Mr. and Mrs. Bates had gone out to another middle aged couple's home. Kennedy was sitting on the porch though with no remorse on his face. He still appeared as cocky as ever.

"Did the council forget about me or something?" Lu crossed her arms and looked out onto the bright paved road in front of the Bate's home.

"No they didn't forget bout you." He replied. "They are actually really curious about you. They like me to update them with how you're adjusting along with your skills and future plans."

"Ah!" She nodded then started shaking her head. "You're not telling me everything."

"You haven't either." He called her out.

"About what?"

"You're brothers," he started to say but then looked at her, "Where do you think they are, really?"

She stiffened up, held her arms in closer to her body. "Why?"

He started chuckling to himself. "Don't worry, we don't have them. By the sounds of them I think they'd already take the town by storm. I'm just wondering… Sometimes I used to wonder about my son Isaac and how he was doing after his mother stopped letting me see him when he was a kid."

"Eventually my ex-wife, Sophia," he patted his arm that had her name written on it, "let me see him. Wasn't anyone's fault but our own. She was my world but when we were together it was like when a tornado meets a volcano."

"I'm so sorry." Was all that Lu thought to say. "I can relate with me and my brothers. We hated each other in our own different ways, but we were all that each one of us had."

"Sounds like a strange relationship for siblings. Tell me again, how did you end up with them? Weren't your parents in a car accident or did they just hand you down to them? They were nice fellows at one time though, weren't they?" He smirked. Lu was caught in her own lie. She couldn't remember her own made up backstory that she told Kennedy.

"Yeah, they were nice… at first." He gave her a look then patted the seat next to him on the porch. Lu sat down and told him the real one. The one she knew best. "My eldest 'brother, Merle, is actually my father. He and my mom hooked up right after she got out of high school. A couple years later she took off and I was torn from my Minnesotan home, sent to live with my dad and uncle in Georgia."

"That's where the accent comes from." He nodded. "Do you regret her for leaving?"

"Every day." She turned around to go back into the house for some iced tea. Kennedy followed her in to pepper her with more questions.

"Why do you call him your brother then?"

"Because I can… Ugh, he's more my brother then my father that's for sure. I don't remember completely but I was little, and I wanted to be called Lu instead of Emma Louise. I didn't of either of them as my uncle or father because they were both just kids for one. Daryl must've been seventeen when I was born…"

"Old enough to be your father." He pointed out.

Lu thought about that statement then poured up a glass for Kennedy and herself and slid his across the table. As she fingered her glass she thought about how to answer what he had just said. A million ideas ran through her head. Most of them consisting of 'father', 'survival', 'resentment', 'hate', 'love', 'disappointment' and 'distanced'.

All that could come out of her mouth was, "I count Daryl as just that. Not Merle." She turned to look out the kitchen window into the backyard where a thin layer of frost covered the ground. "Am I such a horrible daughter?"

For a little lady that has always counted 'no ones girl' she felt extremely responsible for the deaths of her most hated loves of her life.

Kennedy walked past the table and behind Lu. He wrapped his arms around her until his hands found her hands tucked into her sides, unfolded them, and held them in his. He nuzzled into the side of her neck and for a sweet moment, they just stood like that, together. It was amazing.

Lu's never known a romantically involved couple in her life. At least not one that was totally dysfunctional like Carol and Ed or strange like Glenn and Maggie. Merle's never had anything other then one night stands, and who knows how many since her mom, and Daryl… forget about it. The only women he's ever talked to is Andrea, Carol and Lori.

In a nutshell, she didn't know the rules of the love game. She only knew what she felt and what she felt was right. What she felt was that this was being put off for far to long. She's been wanting Kennedy to make a move like this since a little after they started getting to know each other on a personal level and now he has and now it's the best thing she's never had. Now she had to decipher what it actually was. Love? Touch? Comfort? Absolute joy after you realize you have someone to call yours?


	11. Z-Day

Kennedy sat her down at the table and they talked for hours about their families and people they used to know.

Emma Lu found out that Kennedy was named after his mom's favorite actor named Kennedy Richard who was on her favorite soap opera she had to watch every day. "That was back when daytime TV was actually good. Now it's all violence and celebrity drama and people screaming at you about how you should run your life."

"That's how it _was_." She corrected him. "How many tattoos do you have?"

"Two. 'Sophia' on my arm and an American flag on my back that looks like it's underneath my skin. That one was stupid though for more then one reason. I got it when I was a _stupid_ seventeen year old, thought I'd look cool but here a guy in a grade ahead of me, a big football playing brute, had the same one on his arm… That was hell."

"I guess it's sort of history now. This country. Our civilization, I mean. There's no more America. We're no longer one nation under God we're just a whole lot of small groups killing each other. It's sickening." He leaned back in his chair and saw the expressing that Lu had on her face. He was rambling again, getting off on a tangent. "Do you have any?"

She shook her head. "I thought it'd be cool to get one. Daryl has a few, he said he'll take me to get one done on my seventeenth and he'll pay for half of it."

"You're turning seventeen this spring, right?"

She nodded.

"What do you think you'd get?"

She chuckled at herself. "For the longest time I thought I was going to get two stars on the sides of my shoulders. I thought I was such a rebel when I was fifteen. When I turned sixteen though I was really into like, being outdoors and hunting and hiking. I got really good a tracking and would just wander around our mountains all the time. Daryl wouldn't know where I was half the time but wouldn't start panicking unless it got til after midnight and I still wasn't home. That only happened once…"

"He trusted me to not get lost, and I never did." She continued. "I had this idea after getting my license of getting a truck of my own and just go across country, living like a hippie. So I wanted to get this tattoo on the inside of my arm of a really indie compass so I'd never get lost and always find my way home."

"I think it's fitting, even up until now. I mean, before I was on my own I was with a group wandering around Georgia-"

"Getting lost." He reminded her. "That's why you're in Alabama, right?"

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me asshole." She gaffed.

"You still want to get the compass though?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. If I could, I think I would but I also think that if you're inking your body it should be something sentimental, not just because you found a cool picture of a compass when you were sixteen and decided you were going to get it because you thought of yourself as an adventurer. You got your flag because you're an American. You wrote 'Sophia' on your arm because she was your wife. After all think talk about family…. I think I want to get something a little bit more honorable."

"What if I said I have a friend down the road that can do just that?" He suggested. Lu looked at him funny. "He used to be an artist, been wanting to do a tattoo on me for a while now he has a place to work. He's a good guy too. I've known him longer then Philis and Norman, he's cool and won't ask anything from you."

"Okay." She said.

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Like, today."

"Right now?'

"Okay."

"Let's go!"

Kennedy walked with Lu down the Bate's road and turned onto the single main one that ran in the middle of their make shift town. She hadn't been down that one since she was first introduced to Kallenberg.

There were more people out today doing work outside or watching their kids play. Some were even taking their dogs for a walk. Most of the faces Lu would see were either dark or really tan. They'd take a look at Kennedy and give him a respected nod or smile, but then look at Lu and turn away.

Kennedy was totally aware of their silent attitudes and stuck that much closer to Lu. When they got to his friend's house he wrapped his arm around her and went into his kitchen.

Jerome answered the door with his elderly mother right behind him in her nightgown. She gave Kennedy a kiss and Lu a hug and told her 'what a fine little dandy she is.' The guys caught up with each other in the kitchen for about thirty minutes while Jerome's mother, no joke, named Talula gave her some warm honey tea and showed her old family pictures to Lu.

"Talula was what my brother's used to call me when they'd tease me." Lu told her. "I hated it so much when I was little but when I got older I sort of wished it was my real name. It was better then 'Luie'."

Kennedy came out of the kitchen with surran wrap on the inside of his forearm. When Lu pointed it out he hid it away. "He wouldn't let me leave unless I got inked first…."

Lu went into the kitchen and knew exactly what she wanted and just trusted Jerome with what he was doing. As he drew a basic idea of what she wanted, two wings that fit perfectly on her shoulder blades, she tried to get out of him what Kennedy got.

"What is such a bad tattoo that he hid it?" He asked. "I swear, that was the best piece of skin I've ever done."

She gaffed. "Wasn't that like, the only 'piece of skin' you've ever done?"

"Only permanent one I've done. I used to do Henna on my ladies back before Z-Day."

"What's Z-Day?" She asked. "I've heard Kennedy say that before."

Jerome held up his detailed picture of black and white bird wings so Lu could see them. She nodded in agreement then took off her shirt and sat backwards in her chair as he laid the foundation on her. "Z-Day is when everyone knew that they were totally fucked. Pardon meh."

"That's cool." She excused him.

"It's the days, some are different then others, when the dead started coming back to life and people were shooting each other in the street, right? We've all been through that day. The walking dead are usually called zombies. That's where the 'Z' comes in. Your Z-day could've been the first day you started believing those strange stories on the TV or the first time you had to kill a bitten human being. That's Z-day."

"When was your Z-day?"

"Back in Texas," He started. "I was living with my lady, Traniece, when someone in our apartment building was terrorizing the people on the ground floor. After a day the number of them in our building tripled. My lady tried to make a run for it out the front door and was caught by them. Couldn't do nothing bout it so I hoped out our second story window, jacked a car and drove across town to get my moms, see. We booked it to Mississippi and ended up here I guess."

"I bet there was more to that."

"Nah. Just a whole lot of driving and… and I guess a whole lot of driving over zombie too." He laughed. "What bout you? It's gonna take a least two hours to finish this. Tell me your story."

Lu thought about her story. It was all like a nightmare she couldn't shake for the longest time. It was terrorizing and horrific and the worst experience a kid could ever go through. If she had to do it all over again now she could because she'd be stronger.

After shaking, tugging, yelling, dragging and flipping the mattress on the girl Daryl finally resorted to dragging the garden hose from outside, through the living room, kitchen, down the hallway and finally to Lu's room where he unkinked the hose and let loose on the girl laying unconscious on the floor.

Lu got up like a shot flailing about wildly. Daryl grabbed whatever clothes that were laying together on top of her dresser and grabbed her shoulder bag. "In the truck now. If you're late for another day of school you're going to be suspended."

She didn't hesitate, just did what he ordered and went to start the truck still in whatever she slept in that night. Daryl hopped in the driver's seat and threw her clothes and bag at her. Privacy was another luxury at the Dixon house usually, so putting your pants on while your brother drives down your dirt road waving at other vehicles passing by was not a big deal. He lunged for the glove box which contained a toothbrush, toothpaste and a brush just for mornings like this. It was obvious that this happened regularly, just not without the shower.

"What were you up to last night anyway?" Daryl inquired.

"I was just up late last night reading this book for school." He gave her a look. "Really. If I didn't finish it last night I would've failed English."

Old Lu would have been out of the house, hitched a ride to the next township and lived it up with some kids at a bon fire no matter what day of the week it was. He proceeded to glance over at her in disbelief.

"What?" She snapped. "Okay, fine, you got me. I'm lying. I actually spent half the night in the back of Marcus' car smoking God only knows what with four other people I don't know."

"A year ago I might've believed that you know. But you have gotten kind of square, little bear."

"And you've gotten kind of round, daddy-hound." She teased with a straight face. Daryl took no offense with it. Instead he tried to make himself look fatter by slouching and puffing his stomach out.

This was a lighter morning compared to their usual routine, especially by how it started. They were usually cussing at each other and everything else. Lu making her cigarette last for another 8 hours, Daryl blasting Metallica if they didn't have anything to be angry about that morning otherwise.

No matter how rough the morning starts though, all conversation ceased once he pulled into the school parking lot. Today it was totally threadbare except for a few cars, probably teacher's cars. Everyone probably just rode the bus or is gone for a sports tournament. She dismissed it and, like always, leaned over to kiss her brother on the head, "Bye." and run for the school.

The school was just as empty that day too. She wandered to her first class thinking it already started, but a police officer stopped her as she wandered down a hallway off of the main entrance.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing here little lady?" He hung onto his belt with his thumb.

"School?" She sneered.

"Not today, miss. This area is being secured as a safe zone. School's been canceled all throught the county. Don't you watch TV?"

"I live in the sticks, I don't have TV."

"Well, now you know." He snapped his gum. "The hospital is being overrun by patients and an infectious illness. If it gets any worse people are going to have to come here just to escape it. Strange, one would think it's the other way around. Sick people coming here when the hospital gets overrun like that. Whata shame."

"What kind of 'sickness'?" She questioned.

"Beats me." He sniffled. "But I suggest you go back to your home in the sticks and wait this out. Keep your ears peeled. Get your girlfriends on the phone to keep you updated or whatever you kids do these days. Space-Book? Tweeter?"

"Nah, I usually just holler out the window to my neighbor. If they're not home I go out in the back yard and do smoke signals." Then she walked away.

A car drove slowly by the school. Everyone in the vehicle gawked at Lu walking across the parking lot. "Bring it." She muttered then they drove away. "Yeah you best be going."

She started for home. Merle lived closer to town but that was the last place she ever wanted to go. She could keep updated on this thing by watching the TV, but it's not like the radio in the shop works any differently. Plus, if this would be really serious, Daryl's work would've sent him home already.

A couple of miles down her dirt road she heard Merle's unmistakable growl of his Ford F150. He stopped for Lu and let her in. "Little brother home?"

She shrugged. "Haven't been there yet."

"Course." He cussed under his breath. "I'm gonna take you back home. My place would be the first place he'd go anyway in a mess like this."

"Why? What have you heard?"

"Welll….." He scratched his scruff underneath his chin. "I guess people best stay indoors. People are just loosing their minds a bit. Nothing us Dixon's can't handle, aint that right bear?"

What neither of the two knew at that moment was that it was true. People were loosing their minds, along with their sense of everything that was right and human. More and more stories of people were popping up on the news at Merle's about how they were suffering from critical wounds that were inflicted by crazy lunatics, and coming back from them as a crazy lunatic themselves as if they were never injured.

Daryl eventually showed up, talked to Merle in the back yard privately about what he's seen and heard in town, then scolded Lu about running off. Merle dismissed everything to him too as nothing that they cant handle, then started drinking.

By eight at night they were both asleep in front of the TV. Merle in his easy chair, Daryl on the couch resting his cheek on his fist that was propped straight up in the air. Lu covered them up with throw blankets that smelled like must and flipped through the channels watching all the stations that were covering this growing epidemic. It wasn't long until she fell asleep on the floor while watching a rerun of Saturday Night Live from the eighties.


	12. Susan

In the morning she drove to town though she doesn't have a license. She did it all the time though, no one cares and no one will miss her, she'll be back before the two of them wake up.

There's cars in the middle of main street just parked. House's front doors are open, shooting filled the air at random times and bodies were laying in random places throughout the neighborhood as if they were just sleeping. In yards, by cars, on porches and some with others kneeling by them. She doesn't look to hard for fear that they're dead and the people kneeling next to them are their family mourning the loss of their loved ones. Really she should be afraid of the ones that are walking.

As she drove, swerving to miss cars and people running all crazy, she spotted a familiar woman running out of a brown house. She was followed by a little boy carrying a backpack, and finally Marcus totting a duffle bag and a shotgun on his arm. They were running like mad towards the main road that goes through town not even paying attention to Lu as she waved them down.

"Marcus!" She hollered. The mother looked at her first, then the little boy and Marcus. "You need a ride somewhere?"

The mother took her youngest sons hand and tossed him in the cab of the truck while Marcus hopped in the box. She was frantic and weepy just trying to keep her cool. "The school. We need to get to the school."

"What's happening?" She threw it in drive as Marcus posted in her box.

"You must be Lu." She chocked up. "Marcus talks about you. I've seen you around but have never really met you."

"Same to you."

"Horrible things are happening. My husband was called out yesterday. Someone was spotted wandering the woods, looking drunk and suspicious. They thought he might've been hunting or something… but he hasn't been heard from since." She covered her sons ears. Lu believed his name was Cable. "People are killing each other, but not with weapons. The dead people you saw when you drove into town… they're not going to stay that way for long."

"Lu, are you and your brother's safe?" Marcus yelled through the window.

She flashed him the thumbs up. "The school's the safe zone."

She nodded. "You should come with us. The National Guard will be there, they'll bring us to Atlanta. They have a rehab center there for those who aren't infected. That's the real safe zone. You need to stay there if you have any chance in surviving."

"I have brothers."

"I have a family," she noted. "Marcus talks about you so much that I feel like I already know you. I can't let you go, not when you're so close."

"I'm bulletproof. Seriously. I was once shot at close range with a BB gun when I was 11 years old at close range, didn't even break my skin." She chuckled. "Besides, I can fit more people in the box of my pickup then anyone can fit in their minivan. I'll make another round, maybe find someone else who needs my help. Then I'll come back."

Marcus' mother smiled and gave her a hug as she pulled up to the school. The three of them hopped out but Marcus stayed behind.

"Arent' you coming?" He gripped his gun.

"I'll come back. I need to take care of a few more things."

He sighed and pursed his lips. "I cant let you do that. Not without something I've been meaning to give you for a while." He took the back of Lu's head and pulled it close to his in one quick motion and pressed his lips to hers for a moment.

"What was that for?"

"I had to know what it felt like to kiss the prettiest girl I know before I die!" He cheered as he pranced away.

She gaffed. "You're not going to die!"

Lu made another round the main street part of town gathering people who were running alone, in groups or just running from something. A little girl with a giant sweater on knocked on Lu's driver's door begging to get in. She crawled over Lu in between her and another young boy whose mother was in the box of her truck. "Thanks." She said. "My mom told me to go to the school cause they'll help me."

"I'm sure they will." Lu said totally distracted with the chaos she's witnessing.

"My brother bit me when I went to check on him. He had a fever. I think it's because we went swimming in our ditch the other day, but I didn't get sick."

No one paid attention to the young girl chattering calmly as the world fell apart. Lu just dropped her off at the door as she went in with the young boy and his mother, then threw the truck in drive and high tailed it to Merle's again to share the terror she's just witnessed.

"I didn't know what to do. Whether I should cry or fight or hide." Lu told Jerome as he got up from his chair to take a little rest. "I suppose everyone has that moment of weakness when you think to yourself, 'is this is? Is this the end for me?'. I would've given up if I didn't have my brothers to go back to. I wouldn't have had a choice to it if I hadn't gone back for them."

Daryl was sitting outside the house on an old lawn chair, twiddling away at something with his pocket knife, looking pleasantly pissed off. He rose to his feet when Lu threw his truck in park and started for the driver's door. Before she could even get her seatbelt off he swung open the door and tore her out of the vehicle and threw her to the side without a word. This was the piece of Daryl's anger that was like a ticking time bomb. It was only a matter of time before he started yelling.

However this time Lu beat him to it.

"What the hell, Daryl?" She kicked some gravel at him. "Don't you know what the fuck's going on?"

"The fuck's going on? The fuck's going on is that I wake up watching SNL and you're gone with the truck. You just run off like you don't give two shits just like the princess you are. What gave you the idea? During all this shit that's going on too!"

She shook her head and narrowed her eyes at him. "You don't know the half of it…"

He took her by the arm again and started walking her to the house. "Get inside before anybody sees you."

She bumped into Merle as her eyes were adjusting to the bright sky to the dark, dingy kitchen. He just brushed her away to talk to Daryl outside. Probably about Lu. As they continued their pissing match to see whose bravery was going to withstand the other, Lu went into the extra room that used to be hers, and got out Merle's old compound bow that she used to practice with before she got her own.

Incase these new infected little monsters came around Lu wasn't going to be unprepared. Merle had close neighbors all in trailer houses or else old hunting shacks like his. Who knew where they were or what they were. She wasn't going to get out the guns just yet for fear these little infected monsters would follow the sound.

Lu looked out the kitchen window again and behind another trailer house not to far away, she saw a woman she knew from when she was a kid, Susan, wandering in her yard. As Daryl and Merle raised their voices a little at something she turned towards the house to reveal a face that was completely dormant and a nasty head wound. She started wandering towards the house. Lu threw open closets, drawers, looked under furniture and on top of things for a single arrow until she found one on top of the fridge.

Of course.

Susan was on the gravel road right in front of the house when Lu opened the front door. She started down Merle's driveway, breathing heavily as she shuffled. Daryl nodded at her politely and avoided eye contact as he did with most human beings, dead or living, while Merle just gave her a look and started for the back yard. Neither of them paid any attention to Lu standing in the doorway holding a compound bow at eye level.

"In one quick motion I let go of that string and took a person's life for the first time. I'll never forget that." She continued telling Jerome as he did the finishing touches of her tattoo. "After that moment, Daryl and Merle were freaking out at me, thinking I actually killed somebody. I got tossed around a couple times, called a few impolite things. I had to take them to town to show them what the world was coming to. After that they believed me."

"I made Daryl take me to the school in hopes we could find refuge there but there were so many armored vehicles and National Guard members. They were storming the school, dragging people out. Some were unharmed, others wrapped in sheets or anything else they could cover the bodies up with." She recalled vividly. "I guess you could say my Z-Day started the moment I saw this boy dragged out of the school into the parking lot and made to kneel on the pavement. I saw him look up for a moment at the familiar truck before he was gunned down in the spot where he parked every day for school."

"His name was Marcus and he was my first love." Lu heard Kennedy shift his weight as he leaned against the doorway of the kitchen. "I hope you heard all that because that is one exhausting story to tell."

He nodded in respects. "I heard everything."

Lu covered her face from the sight of her friend laying there on the pavement and couldn't help but let the tears flow. She was used to crying silently like this, it worked for her, but when Merle saw the horror that struck his little girl he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and held her close. This made her sob out loud. She covered her face in embarrassment and tried to make herself stop.

This she didn't tell her new friends. She kept it to herself for fear they'd think her weak still. This though, was the most cowardly thing she could do though.


	13. The Battles and The War

Jerome presented her new tattoo of two feathery wings on her shoulder blades that moved as she moved her arms back and forth. It was beautiful and extremely cool. Much better then a compass, but like Kennedy warned her, tattoos can be addicting. She brushed it off at first bur sure enough not a week later Kennedy brought Jerome by for a visit and she managed to talk him into another tattoo.

By the end of the year she had two black and white tattoos on her back, and one on her left wrist of a compass modeled after one Kennedy carried on him she liked so much. The 'N' lined up with her middle finger if she lined it up just right. It wasn't too big or overdone, it was beautiful and she had her new friend to thank.

Even though Lu claimed to be taking a break from God she still thought to quietly celebrate Christmas in the Bate's household with the three of them and Kennedy as their special guest with a nice dinner and a small present exchange. Lu didn't have much to offer either of them not even having a gun, a horse or even clothes to call her own but gave what she'd scavenge off of walkers she'd find.

As morbid and unsympathetic it sounded that was the way it was going to be from now on. No one was in factories making our everyday objects. Everything was a hand-me-down, used and previously owned now. In returned she got a jean quilt from Norman and Philis that smelled pleasantly clean and a new scented candle that wasn't even burned yet, that smelled like lattice.

The real present came later when Kennedy took her to their lake and gave her a 'let's be in love and not make long termed plans' ring. Her favorite kind. It fit perfectly and was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Probably the most expensive too, but what was gold compared to now?

The story behind it was that it belonged to a young gal, just like Lu, who was a total stranger to Kennedy. He didn't even know her name. They were traveling in a group together briefly. "When I say briefly I mean we were all running together, just a big flock of us, escaping walking corpses, running through the woods like some horror movie."

The girl was maybe twenty with long red hair wearing a green shirt and ripped up jeans carrying nothing on her. She was a human who abandoned her car, just like most of the other people running with her. She ended up getting tangled in some underbrush and fell right on her face. Kennedy went back to grab her but it ended up being a tug of war for her between him and two walkers that were ahead of the pack.

He tried to pull her away but more and more she was slipping away. Needless to say he lost the battle of the red haired girl but escaped the heard, not without accidently taking her engagement ring right off her finger though.

This may sound depressing after he gave it to Lu now, but it's a reminder of him and that red head. He lost the fight for her life even though he didn't try his hardest. He admitted that he was scared and ran away though he probably could've taken an extra few seconds and dig her out if he had to, maybe get the two of them out of there. Save a life. There was also the possibility that they'd both be caught and Kennedy wouldn't even be here right now. Everything happens for a reason though.

Instead he lost the battle but the ring was a reminder that he will not lose the war. He wanted Lu to have that hope too, so that's why he placed that ring on her finger and called her 'his' now.

Could someone die of happiness?

For once in Lu's miserable life filled with one random act of dread after another she was finally happy. She had a love and a family, a home and a friend or two. They all loved her back and for one moment everything was perfect.

Then that moment ended.

A few days after their little Christmas celebration, Kennedy came over to the Bate's house. Lu was in the back yard getting wood for the fireplace. She looked like an old housewife as she sported a green, long sleeved dress that dated back probably to the 90's that came to her knees. She worked it with a pair of jeans underneath and her old boots she never went anywhere without. She beamed at the sight of him. She hadn't seen him in almost twenty-four hours.

Kennedy just tipped his hat to her. "Come for a walk with me, Emma."

Lu dropped what she was doing and hollered in the back door to Philis, "I'm going out with Kennedy!"

He made a face but took her hand as he led her into their trail to the lake. Though it was still probably December, it felt like another Georgia spring day to her. She wondered what the weather in South Carolina would be around this time, but she didn't ask, she just enjoyed their comfortable silence.

As they reached the lake, they still didn't say anything. Kennedy had this look about him that was full of concern but it wasn't towards Lu. He would occasionally take off his hat and run his hand through his brown hair, then place it back on top of his head. She'd never seen him do this so many times in a two mile stretch.

"What's on your mind?" She questioned.

"You should leave now." He blurted out and let go of her hands. "I have Nancy on the other side of the lake tied to a tree. She's a lot faster then Sprout and less tired. Along with her is your green bag and double barrel gun. Inside is your blanket, a few bottles of water and a box of shells. There's only forty though so use them sparingly. I don't need to tell you that though."

"What?" She staggered back and made a face at him.

He dug in his pocket and pulled out a long hunting knife, then clipped it into the inside of her dress pocket. "Kallenberg has decided your fate and it's not what we had in mind."

"I thought I was staying." She pulled out the knife to examine it.

"Well," He dug in his own pockets in search of anything else that would help her. "So did I."

"This doesn't make any sense. This isn't real. It's unbelievable." She pressed her palms to her temples and ran her hands down the sides of her hair.

"This is a plan, Emma, okay? We need to follow it." He took her by her shoulders. "You need to haul ass to Sprout, climb aboard and ride away east as far as you can until you get to Georgia, until you hit the Atlantic Ocean if you have to! Find your group. Live your life and just survive."

She pushed him away. "I'm not going without you. You can't make me go!"

Lu was now five years old again standing in the parking lot of the nursing home where her mom worked. Her mom had just told her that she was leaving for Oregon or Oklahoma or somewhere like that to meet up with her old boyfriend, which meant Lu had to live with her elderly grandmother again after they just got a home of their own. She had said these same words to her mom after she broke the news to her. Two weeks later she left for wherever-the-hell it was she wanted to run off to, two years later she totally disappeared out of her daughter's life.

The feeling of it all didn't change though.

"There's no sense in both of us running, it'll just make things worse." He took the straw cowboy hat from his head and placed it on hers. "I'm responsible for you. The town will know I let you go and focus more on punishing me then chasing after you. If I come with they'll have twice the reason to go after us. No one escapes Kallenberg."

"What'll happen to you?" She pushed the hat up to fit better on her head.

"I'll be punished." He reminded her, then kissed the side of her mouth quickly and let her go. "I'll be fine."

"You need to come and find me." She offered. "Whatever it takes whether it's days or weeks, you need to find me in Georgia. I'll go straight west until I hit the Atlantic. You'll find me there parallel from here."

He nodded. "Whatever it takes. Besides, I have to return Sprout to you somehow, right?"

Lu ran around the lake until she found the groomed and fat Sprout tied up to a tree. True to his word he managed to smuggle her green bag with everything in it out to her. She even had a nice, new saddle for sprout with a shotgun holder and everything. Truly a rig fit for a lone ranger such as herself.

She mounted Nancy and started full blast in the opposite direction of Kallenberg. The farther away she ran Sprout the more she thought about Norman and Philis. They'd be so confused on what exactly happened to their little friend. They'd lose trust in Kennedy since he was the last to see her alive, which would just subtract to his social status within the community.

Then she began to wonder about what exactly he meant by 'being punished'. It sounded like he was going to be put in shackles and be given forty lashes in front of the whole town. Knowing the world now though, that would be very gracious. Maybe he'd have to fight for his life through a handful of walkers or execute innocent people himself from now on. The list could go on and on and not end for something like this. Or maybe, by some miracle, they'd just kill him and put him out of his misery.

Then Lu thought of the possibility of them making him lead them to where Lu was going. He'd be the leader of the pack, chasing a girl down to buy his freedom. Being tortured when he doesn't find her fast enough. Sooner or later he'd forget that they ever loved each other at all.

She didn't want him hunting her down, dead or wishing he was dead. She just wanted him here with her, but not all is fair in love and war. This was love, she thought, and this was definitely war. It was a constant battle between the living and the dead.

It was like he said, this is just the battle. Every unfortunate occurrence is a battle in our new world now. We might lose the battle, we might lose our lives or loved ones in that battle, but it's how everything turns out in the end. That's what really matters, how you won the war. However this was a never ending war.


End file.
